A Sudanese appeals court overturned a sentence of death...

A Sudanese appeals court overturned a sentence of death by stoning for a pregnant Christian woman accused of adultery, and sent the case back to the lower court for fresh sentencing, court documents showed.
The appeals court in Sudan's southern Darfur state, bordering the Central African Republic, ruled late in January that the lower court should give the defendant a "rebuke" sentence, not capital punishment, the documents received by Reuters showed.
A criminal court in Nyala, about 800 km (500 miles) southwest of Khartoum, had sentenced Abuk al-Daw Akok on December 8 to death by stoning for adultery. Akok is a member of Sudan's Dinka tribe, the largest ethnic group in the south.
The ruling was made in line with Islamic Sharia law, even though Akok was Christian. She appealed on January 3, and remains in prison in Nyala.
Rights group Human Rights Watch, which said Akok was 18 years old when she was sentenced, had criticised the death sentence as barbaric.
Appeal papers showed a second defendant, a northern Sudanese man accused of adultery with Akok, had been acquitted by the lower court.
The defense lawyer said Akok, who is married to another man, was pregnant with her husband's child.
Akok's case is the first of its kind in Sudan. But many southern Sudanese, who are mostly Christian or animist, have been sentenced according to Sharia law, although few of these sentences have been carried out.
Sharia law includes sentences such as amputations for theft and execution for murder.