Last edited: February 18, 2005


Man Faces Stoning for Child Sex

News 24.com, December 28, 2004
South Africa

KANO—An Islamic Sharia court in northern Nigeria has sentenced a man to be stoned to death for sodomising a 10-year-old boy, a court official told AFP on Tuesday.

The conviction of 38-year-old Danliti Rabiu marked the first time a court in Kano State had resorted to a stoning sentence since it restored the Islamic legal system in November 2001.

“He reiterated his guilt before the court at three different sittings and refused to withdraw his confession,” said a court official from the Upper Sharia Court in Gwarzo, 50km west of Kano city.

“The judge, Mahfuz Mohammed ignored Danliti’s plea for leniency and passed the death penalty as Sharia orders that once an accused confesses to such an offence and maintains his guilt there is no question of leniency,” he said.

The accused will, however, be allowed to appeal the sentence, he added. He is being held in Kano’s main central prison.

Friday’s court hearing was told that Danliti, a divorced father-of-two, had been caught having sex with the boy in his house by neighbours, including the victim’s father, the official said.

A dozen mainly-Muslim states across northern Nigeria have reintroduced Sharia law since Nigeria returned to civilian rule in 1999.

More than a dozen people have since been sentenced to be stoned to death for various sexual offences, including homosexuality and adultery, but none of the sentences have yet been carried out and several were thrown out on appeal.

Until Friday’s ruling Kano, the most populous state in the north, had been regarded as one of the most cautious in its application of Sharia in criminal cases, and Danliti is the first to face a stoning there.

Scores of drinkers have been flogged, but 11 thieves who have been sentenced to lose their hands have been held in prison for many months without their judgements being carried out.


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