Nigerian woman loses deportation fight despite 'death threat'

A Nigerian woman who claimed she would be stoned to death if deported to her home country, today lost her legal bid blocking that deportation.

Kate Nimota Banidele, 38, was due to repatriated to her home country in July but was granted a last-minute court order restraining Justice Minister Michael McDowell from deporting her.

However, Justice Vivian Lavin ruled today in the High Court that no substantial grounds had been established to contest that deportation order.

He said that earlier decisions by the Refugee Appeals Commission and the Refugee Appeals Tribunal weren’t challenged by Ms Banidele and he had to accept that these were reasonable.

Justice Lavin refused leave to Ms Banidele’s counsel for a judicial review to the Supreme Court and granted costs to the Minister for Justice.

A spokesperson for the Justice Minister said that Ms Banidele, who didn’t appear in court, could now be legally deported with the existing two-month-old deportation order.

Counsel for Ms Banidele, Proinsias Ó Maolchaláin BL, earlier told the court that his client faced the death sentence by stoning in Nigeria because she had three children out of wedlock with a Christian man.

This was an serious offence under the Sharia laws which applied to some states in Northern Nigerian where she lived.

However, counsel for the Justice minister, Emily Farrell, BL said that Ms Banidele’s deportation order was to deport her by private charter flight to Lagos in southern Nigeria where the Sharia laws didn’t apply.