LAGOS (Reuters):

A Nigerian sharia court has sentenced a man to one year in prison and 100 strokes of the cane for adultery, the official news agency reported from the northern city of Katsina yesterday.

Mahmud Hamisu, 27, is the first man known to have been convicted of the crime in a sharia court since 2000 when 12 northern, mainly Muslim, Nigerian states began a stricter enforcement of Islamic law.

Hamisu was given 100 lashes in public just after his conviction, then moved to prison. Under Nigerian sharia law, adultery convictions require either a confession or at least three witnesses to the couple having sex.