A Sharia court in northern Nigeria sentenced a 50-year...

A Sharia court in northern Nigeria sentenced a 50-year old man to be stoned to death after he admitted raping a nine-year old girl. Sarimu Mohammed, married with two children, was convicted on May 8 by a lower Sharia court in Birnuwa, a town in the northwestern Jigawa state.
He has 30 days to appeal. Should the death sentence be upheld, he would be the second person to be executed since the strict Sharia law was introduced in parts of Africa's most populous country two years ago.
"Mohammed was convicted after admitting at three different court sessions that he raped the minor," a Jigawa state government official told Reuters by phone.
"The judge explained the penalty rape attracts under Sharia, yet he (Mohammed) admitted committing the offence."
Presiding judge Isa Gantsa ruled that Mohammed should also pay a fine of 10,000 naira ($86) as compensation for the victim and receive 100 lashes for deflowering her, the official said. Mohammed is the first rape convict since 2000, when more than a dozen states in predominantly Islamic northern Nigeria adopted the Muslim penal code.
In January, Sani Rodi was hanged in northwestern Katsina state for multiple murder in the first sharia execution. An appeal by a woman [Amina Lawal] sentenced to death for adultery in the same state is pending.