more nigerian gays face death by stoning

By Newscenter Staff (365Gay.com)

July13, 2005: Lagos - Less than a week after a United Nations official criticized Nigeria for sentencing a gay man to death by stoning two other gay men have been dragged into court to face the same sentence.

The pair, identified in the local media as Yusuf Kabir, 40, and Usman Sani,18, are accused of sodomy. They appeared Wednesday morning in a Sharia or Islamic court in the northern town of Katsina.

Police said they were arrested while having sex in a public washroom on June 19 although today was their first court appearance.

Prosecutors were unable to provide any witnesses in court. The judge, instead of dismissing the case as would be done in most western countries when witnesses to a crime are not provided ruled that the prosecution had until August 3 to find corroborating evidence of the crime.

In the meantime the two men will remain in prison.

Since 2000, 12 of Nigeria's northern states have adopted Sharia codes for their courtrooms. Under Islamic law, gay sex is punishable by death.

Press reports say that more than a dozen people have been convicted to death by stoning but none of the sentences has been carried out.

Last week, Philip Alston, the United Nations special rapporteur on arbitrary executions called for an immediate review of a case involving a 50 year old man. (story)

Alston stumbled across the man while on a UN tour of Nigerian prisons.

Alston said that the man told him he had been charged with sodomy on the word of a neighbor and brought before a Sharia court. Following a brief trial he was acquitted for lack of evidence.

But, according to Alston's report, the judge then asked the man if he had ever had sex with another man. When the man answered yes the judge convicted him of sodomy and sentenced him to death.