US embassy cable - 01ABUJA1046

C O N F I D E N T I A L ABUJA 001046 
 
SIPDIS 
 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/08/2006 
TAGS: PHUM, PREL, PGOV, KISL, KIRL 
SUBJECT: SHARIA IN ZAMFARA--A NEW LOW 
 
REF: (A) ABUJA 215 (B) ABUJA 424 (C) 00 ABUJA 419 (D) 
     ABUJA 405 
 
 
1. (U)  Summary: Governor Ahmed Sani on May 3 permitted the 
second hand-amputation since the return of criminal Sharia in 
Zamfara State in February, 2000.  The victim had been 
convicted of stealing three bicycles in July 2000, and the 
sentence had been held in abeyance since that time.  The 
timing of the amputation, almost one year after the 
conviction, makes the decision to go forward appear 
politically motivated.  Many Nigerian Muslims--including 
those who support criminal Sharia--have expressed outrage 
over the cavalier and politicized approach to Sharia 
punishments in Zamfara, but fear criticizing the 
wildly-popular Sani publicly.  At this point, Zamfara's 
indigent citizens are subject to the most extreme type of 
Sharia penalties, which are enforced by political judges 
lacking adequate training in Sharia jurisprudence.  Unlike 
their co-religionists in other countries living under Islamic 
criminal law, Muslims in Zamfara State do not even benefit 
from the defenses and procedures required by classical Sharia 
doctrine--which usually make a sentence of amputation nearly 
impossible to carry out.  End Summary. 
 
 
2. (C)  The personal physician to Governor Sani, Dr. Bello 
Buzu, amputated the hand of convicted bicycle thief Lawal Isa 
on Thursday, May 3.  Isa had been convicted of stealing three 
bicycles by the Upper Sharia Court in the Gummi Local 
Government Area of rural Zamfara State on July 7, 2000. 
While Sani told Poloff nearly one year ago that there would 
be "no more" amputations in Zamfara, and that he would abide 
by an informal agreement with the Executive to set aside 
those sentences, conditions appear now to have changed. 
 
 
3. (U)  This case, along with the amputation of Buba Jangebe 
for cattle rustling and the flogging of 14-year-old Bariya 
Magazu for alleged fonication in January, defines the state 
of Sharia jurisprudence in Zamfara State (Ref. A).  While 
other states (like Sokoto) have had alkali judges pronounce 
amputation sentences, these have all been set aside either on 
formal appeal or by executive review.  Zamfara's politicized 
Sharia punishments continue to be focused on the most 
defenseless of its citizens, while the well-known misdeeds of 
Zamfara's political elite--including some recently dismissed 
Sharia judges--go unpunished.  Sharia "Hadd" punishments, 
such as amputation, are intended to be imposed only in 
extremely rare cases (Pakistan has not had an amputation 
since it introduced Sharia law in 1979).  In Zamfara, 
however, they appear to be used to advance purely political 
interests.  Many Muslim Nigerians--including those who 
support some version of criminal Sharia--are outraged over 
the brazenly political manipulation of their tradition, and 
at the lack of either Constitutional or traditional Sharia 
protections afforded Zamfara,s Muslims. 
 
 
4. (C)  Comment:  The timing of this amputation may not have 
been co-incidental.  It was performed immediately prior to 
President Obasanjo's trip to the U.S., one week after the 
USCIRF released its Religious Freedom Report (which was 
critical of Zamfara0, and four days after Muslim 
fundamentalist Ibrahim Zakzaky publicly described Sharia in 
Zamfara as being a sham.  Some Nigerian contacts have 
suggested that when foreign human rights institutions begin 
focusing on Sharia, pressure mounts among Zamfara's Sharia 
zealots for Governor Sani to prove that he is serious about 
Sharia.  President Obasanjo's desire for re-election, and his 
growing unpopularity in the North--considered largely 
responsible for his victory in 1999--may also have led 
Governor Sani to feel the he could allow another amputation 
with impunity.  Sani is also playing to his foreign audience 
of supporters, which include, as he admitted informally to 
Poloff last year, Iranians, Iraqis and Libyans. 
 
 
5. (C)  Comment continued: The political manipulation of 
Sharia in Zamfara has created an environment in which its 
Muslim citizens, human rights can be arbitrarily violated. 
It is also useful to compare Sharia as it is being practiced 
in Zamfara to Islamic criminal jurisdictions elsewhere in the 
world.  From the way these three cases have been handled, it 
can be conclusively said that defendants facing "hadd" Sharia 
punishments in Zamfara are afforded fewer of the classical 
Sharia procedural protections and substantive defenses than 
their co-religionists in Pakistan, Libya, Iran or even the 
Sudan.  Half-baked and hastily adopted, Zamfara's version of 
political Sharia is not only bad from the human rights 
perspective, it is also bad Sharia. 
Andrews