A leading member of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's...

A leading member of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia party lobbied the government to intervene with a Nigerian Muslim state to spare the life of a woman due to be stoned to death under Sharia law.
Dario Rivolta, deputy chairman of the Italian parliament's foreign affairs committee, wrote to Foreign Minister Renato Ruggiero urging him to intervene to try to save the life of 35-year-old Safiya Hussaini.
"Non-Western military and religious regimes must account for the fact that women have always been victims of systematic abuse," Rivolta wrote.
Hussaini was condemned to death for adultery in October by an Islamic tribunal in the Northwestern Islamic state of Sokoto in Nigeria.
The Rome-based Catholic charitable organisation Sant'-Egidio has appealed to Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo to stop the state authorities from carrying out the execution.