Mother escapes death by stoning

The Nigerian woman whose death sentence for adultery prompted an international boycott of Miss World was reprieved from execution by stoning today.

The sentence on Amina Lawal was imposed by an Islamic court when she had a baby out of marriage, but today a panel of five judges spared her life.

The illiterate 32-year-old had been sentenced under an extremist interpretation of Muslim sharia law in a case which threatened to split Nigeria along religious lines.

It prompted a major boycott of Miss World, which had been due to take place in Nigeria last November but was cancelled when sectarian riots killed hundreds of people because of a newspaper article suggesting the prophet Mohammed would have approved of the show.

Today the sharia appeals court in the conservative state of Katsina, which has implemented sharia law, overruled the verdict of the lower court which had imposed the sentence.

Miss Lawal, dressed in a traditional Muslim headdress, entered court clutching daughter Wasila, who is nearly two.

"I'm okay. I'm just hoping for the best," she said, before the hearing. She stood at the front of the court to hear the judges' ruling, as outside dozens of armed police were on standby in case of rioting.

The lifting of the sentence relieves some the international pressure on Nigeria, which had faced a renewed storm of protest if Miss Lawal had been condemned to death.

It will also help calm religious tensions, which could have spilled over into bloody rioting if the Christian president, Olusegun Obasanjo, had intervened to grant Miss Lawal clemency.