Plaintiff asks court to pluck out man’s eye

Kano(Nigeria), May 27: In a literal instance of the saying ‘‘an eye for an eye’’, an Islamic court in northern Nigeria has been asked to remove a man’s right eye after he was found guilty of partially blinding a friend, court officials said.

In a hearing on Friday, Sanusi Bala, the plaintiff, asked the Islamic court at Malumfashi in Katsina state to inflict the punishment after the court found his former friend Ahmed Tijjani guilty of assault.

The court heard that Tijjani in March this year attacked Bala after an argument over the outcome of a football match. In the dispute, Tijjani stabbed Bala in the right eye, making him loose his eyesight in that eye, the court was told.

Finding him guilty of the assault, the judge said that under the strict Islamic law introduced in a swathe of northern Nigerian states last year, the two sentences available were either the removal of one of Tijjani’s eyes or the payment of 50 camels by way of compensation.

Bala said he was not interested in the camels and asked the court to order the removal of his Tijjani’s eye, the court officials said.

The court adjourned for a week to consider the sentence. Officials said any sentence would have to be approved by the state governor, who has in the past shown uneasiness over Islamic law punishments. (AFP)