Nigeria´s Niger State Sharia Appeal Court postponed...

Nigeria´s Niger State Sharia Appeal Court postponed for almost a month the appeal of a young couple of former lovers who were sentenced to be stoned to death.
Officials at the court said that the chief judge, Grand Khadi Abdumumumi Enagi, had "travelled out of town" and that the case had been put off until April 21. No explanation was given for his absence.
Fatima Usman and her former sweetheart Ahmadu Ibrahim, both now thought to be 33, were convicted of adultery in 2001 after Usman's father complained to a Sharia judge that Ibrahim was not paying support for their illegitimate child.
Human rights lawyers say that the case is shot through with procedural errors and does not match Islamic law's, or Sharia's, own strict rules of evidence.
Niger is one of 12 northern Nigerian states to have reintroduced Sharia principles into its penal code since the west African country returned to civilian rule in 1999 under a democratic federal constitution.