Free Republic

HOUSTON -- A Texas oilman who's accused of defrauding the Nigerian government by illegally pumping and exporting 10 million barrels of oil is a major fundraiser for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. Kase Lawal of Houston is at least the fourth person accused or convicted of criminal wrongdoing to help finance Clinton's political ambitions since 2000 and the second in her quest for the White House. The list also includes Chinese and Pakistani fugitives and a former Miami lawyer, Peter Paul, who was convicted of defrauding Cuba. There's no indication that Clinton's campaign was aware of Lawal's legal problems when it...

I was never afraid says Lawal The Nigerian mother who was spared death by stoning says she has renewed faith in Islam. Amina Lawal, 32, won clemency from an Islamic appeals court from her death sentence for bearing a child conceived out of wedlock. She said: "The trial did not affect my faith in Islam, because I know that Shariah makes room for fair trial. It is a fair procedure, and so I was never afraid throughout my trial." Lawal, a devout Muslim, would have been the first person stoned to death since more than a dozen heavily Islamic states...

KATSINA, Nigeria (AFP) - Single mother Amina Lawal launched an appeal against an adultery conviction that could see her become the first Nigerian to be stoned to death since the return of Islamic law. The 31-year-old village housewife has become the best known symbol around the world of the controversy surrounding the reintroduction in Nigeria's mainly Muslim north of the strict Sharia criminal law code. On Wednesday she was back in the spotlight once again, cradling her baby daughter Wasila in Katsina State's Sharia Appeal Court before a five-strong bench of senior judges decked out in white robes and...