Homosexuality: Court frees 2
2005-12-06 18:08
Katsina - A Nigerian Islamic court has acquitted two men accused of homosexuality, lifting the threat that they be stoned to death.
Delivering his judgment on Tuesday, judge Mustapha Sani Saulawa told the court the prosecution had not brought enough evidence to convict the pair on a capital charge.
The pair had spent six months in jail.
Judge Mustapha Sani Saulawa said to the defendants: "Even if there is prima facie evidence, given the gravity of the punishment, the prosecution needs four witnesses to the kind of crime of which you are accused."
Kabir Yusuf, 40, and Usman Sani, 18, were arrested in a public toilet on June 19.
Police said the two had been having sex.
However, they could not produce any witnesses to the act itself, only to the two men leaving the toilet together while adjusting their trousers.
'Your stay in prison should serve as a warning'
Saulawa acquitted the two on lack of evidence.
He said: "However, your stay in prison should serve as a warning to you to be of firm character and desist from any form of immorality."
Islamic Sharia law was re-introduced in Katsina state in August 2001, making it one of a dozen mainly Muslim northern states to re-adopt the code since Nigeria's return to civilian rule in 1999.
Under the interpretation of Muslim legal texts now in force, sexual offences such as adultery, rape and homosexuality are punishable by death.
More than a dozen people have been convicted under these laws, but no-one has been stoned to death. The law remains controversial.
Yusuf said: "I'm delighted to be acquitted, after six months in prison as an innocent man in fear of execution. I've been humiliated."