NIGERIAN STONING TRIAL ADJOURNED UNTIL SEPTEMBER 25

Lawal, a 31-year-old village housewife, will learn next month whether her appeal has been successful or whether she could still become the first Nigerian to be stoned since the return of Sharia law.
"The court has heard both sides in this case and hereby adjourns until September 25 for judgement," said trial judge, Grand Khadi Aminu Ibrahim, the highest Islamic legal authority in Lawal´s home state, Katsina. Earlier the Katsina Sharia Appeal Court had heard Lawal´s defence team argue that her first trial and her first, failed appeal had been unfair. As Lawal and her baby Wasila left the court to return with family members to her home village of Kurami, her lawyer and friend Hauwa Ibrahim was confident that her life would be saved.
"We are very hopeful that we are going to win," she said after the hearing, noting that the judges had extended the court´s normal sitting hours to allow Lawal´s appeal hearing to finish in good time. Under Sharia, a person who has sex outside of marriage can be found guilty of adultery, and thus face death.
Last year Lawal was denounced by fellow villagers in the Katsina farming community of Kurami after she gave birth to Wasila more than two years after splitting from her husband. She was convicted in March last year and lost her first appeal in August, instantly becoming an international cause.
Defence counsel Aliyu Musa Yawuri has opted to challenge her conviction under the terms of Sharia, not to fight the controversial legal system itself. He argued that the village court which convicted her had not properly explained the offence nor its consequences before her alleged confession.
He also said that the baby had been conceived before Sharia law formally came into force in Katsina State. Amina sat impassively through most of the proceedings cradling baby Wasila, but she appeared close to tears when press photographers crowded in, and family members said the young Muslim woman was under severe stress.
"She´s anxious to see the end of this case so that she can marry and have a normal life," said the defendant´s uncle, 50-year-old farmer Magaji Liman. No one has yet been stoned to death since 12 mainly Muslim northern states seized upon the end of military rule in 1999 to begin invoking Islamic law for the first time since the west African country won independence in 1960.