KANO: A court in northern Nigeria acquitted a minor at an appeal hearing on Thursday after he had been sentenced to 10 years in prison under Islamic law in a conviction that caused a global outcry.
In August, a Sharia court in the northern city of Kano handed Omar Farouq the jail term following accusations that he made blasphemous comments in an argument. The judges who acquitted him on Thursday said he was 17 at the time of his sentencing.
His conviction was condemned by rights groups, the United Nations and the head of Poland’s Auschwitz Memorial who said he and others would volunteer to each serve a month of the boy’s prison sentence.
Two judges at the appeal section of the secular high court in Kano on Thursday ruled that Farouq should be acquitted and the case discharged, meaning he cannot be recharged.
They made the ruling, they said, because Farouq was a minor who lacked proper legal representation in the Sharia court.
Published in Dawn, January 22nd, 2021
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