A Nigerian couple convicted of adultery and sentenced...

A Nigerian couple convicted of adultery and sentenced to death by stoning has been freed on bail by a Sharia court. The French news agency, AFP, reported that journalists and lawyers turned up for the scheduled appeal hearing at New Gawu, Niger state, only to find that the two had been freed the previous week. Defence lawyer Jibril Kallamu said he had brought an emergency motion to secure the couple's release because Fatima Usman, 32, was about to go into labour. "She has gone nine months. She could give birth today, tomorrow, or the day after," he said. Ahmadu Ibrahim said that he and his former lover, Usman, only learnt that they had been sentenced to death moments before being released. The couple was originally imprisoned for the offence of adultery. But at an appeal hearing, held in their absence, the judge imposed the death sentence, arguing that the earlier court had used the wrong penal code to try the case.