A Nigerian Islamic appeal court quashed the conviction...

A Nigerian Islamic appeal court quashed the conviction of Had Sarimu Mohammed, a 55-year-old peasant farmer who had been sentenced to be stoned to death for the rape of a nine-year-old girl.
Mohammed could have become the first Nigerian to be stoned since northern states began reintroducing Sharia law in 1999. But the Sharia appeal court in the northern town of Dutse accepted his plea of insanity, ordered his conviction be thrown out and remanded the defendant for psychiatric tests.
"Since we are convinced that Sarimu is insane, his conviction is not valid," Judge Mohammed Inuwa told the small crowd of lawyers and spectators in the tiny, bare courtroom.
"All Islamic scholars agree the confession of an insane man is not valid and he is immune from prosecution," he said. "This court quashes the earlier judgement passed on Sarimu and this court rules that the governor should ... remand Sarimu in Kazaure Asylum pending the governor's decision on him," the judge said.
Sarimu had been convicted in May 2002 after confessing to the rape of a nine-year-old girl from a village near his home in Baranda, in northern Nigeria's remote and rural Jigawa State. But his family appealed the judgement and brought witnesses before the court who attested to his mental instability.
"I'm happy that I've been saved from execution," said Sarimu, a soft-spoken, grey-bearded man who stood throughout the detailed 20-minute judgement wearing a faded purple kaftan. "I pray that God will cure me of my illness. I want to go back home and farm, which is all I know," he told AFP in his native Hausa language after the hearing.
The family of Sarimu's victim did not attend the hearing, but before the appeal the girl's mother had told AFP that she did not care about the judgement.
"I don't care whether Sarimu is executed or not, because that will not redress the damage done. My daughter has been defiled.... The family will live with the shame forever," Uwa Alasan said.