Sudan has been run by a military junta since a coup one year ago.

Campaigners say the 20-year-old didn’t get a fair trial and should be freed.

A government official agreed that the trial was “a joke” but added: “We don’t have a minister who can intervene to demand her release.”

The young woman, who separated from her husband in 2020 and went to live with her family, was accused of adultery by her husband a year later. She was found guilty in June 2022 by a court in the city of Kosti, in Sudan’s White Nile state.

Her appeal against the conviction has now been heard and the court’s judgement is awaited.

Sulaima Ishaq, who heads the Violence Against Women Unit at the Ministry of Social Development, told the BBC that she had been telling officials in the capital, Khartoum, that the trial was flawed, but that the lack of government ministers made it hard to get her point across.

Human rights groups say the woman, whom the BBC is not naming at the family’s request, was not given access to a lawyer while in custody and was not aware of the charges against her.

“We have grounds to believe she was illegally forced into signing a confession by the police,” says Mossaad Mohamed Ali, executive director of the African Centre for Justice and Peace Studies (ACJPS).

The woman’s lawyer, Intisar Abdala, told the BBC she hoped that following the appeal, the court would now “do the right thing” and release her client.

Sudan still imposes the death penalty for some hudud crimes – offences specified by Allah in the Quran, including theft and adultery. In Sudanese law, they carry penalties such as flogging, the amputation of hands and feet, hanging and stoning.

A government promise in 2015 to withdraw death by stoning as a form of punishment was never acted on, human rights groups say.

“Even the most conservative politicians are against stoning,” Sulaima Ishaq told the BBC. “But things take a lot of time to change here and then feed through to the courts, and women are the ones who suffer.”

Hala Al-Karib, regional director for the Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa (Siha), said that Sudan’s adultery laws were “disproportionately applied to women”.

The last person known by campaigners to have been sentenced to death by stoning on an adultery charge was a young woman called Intisar El Sherif Abdalla.

She and her four-month-old baby were released in 2012 following a campaign by Siha and Amnesty International. But Ms Al-Karib said there could have been other cases that had gone unnoticed.

“Feminists and human rights groups in the country have minimal resources and there could well be hundreds of cases we are not aware of.”

Under the transitional government that took charge in Sudan after the uprising against President Omar al-Bashir in 2019, a “public order” law that controlled how women acted and dressed in public was repealed.

However, Sudanese journalist Zeinab Mohammed Salih has reported that the “morality police” who used to patrol the streets and enforce this law have returned following a coup one year ago.

There are also reports that Bashir loyalists have been re-hired by the ruling junta that came to power after the coup.

“We were hopeful that Sudan’s transitional government would establish changes to Sudan’s legal framework, which continues to openly criminalise women and girls and contribute to their subordination and inequality,” said Hala Al-Kirab. “But we were naive.”

In 2021, Sudan also became a signatory to the UN Convention against Torture.

“Under the Convention, torture is defined as causing a person intentional and intense suffering,” said Mossaad Mohamed Ali of the ACJPS. “Stoning is one of the worst forms of torture.”

International and local NGOs calling for the woman’s release have also described the sentence of stoning as “cruel, inhuman and degrading”.

Lawyer Intisar Abdala is the only person who has been allowed to visit the 20-year-old, who has been held for months in a women’s prison in White Nile State.

“The young woman is in alright physical health but she is understandably very anxious. There’s not much more I can say as a woman lawyer who lives and works to help other women in a conservative region like Kosti,” she said.

She added that the young woman was an “ordinary and simple country girl from a very traditional, and religious, farming family” and that her parents had not abandoned her.

“We are awaiting a judgement from the court of appeal but nobody can tell when that will come. Waiting is our only option.”

Those campaigning for the woman’s release say they would welcome international pressure.

“We are concerned that the appeal court will not rule in the young woman’s favour. We save women from these laws when the international community raises its voice and adds pressure on the Sudanese government, and that must happen again in this case,” said Hala Al-Karib.

“This may be a shocking ruling globally, but doesn’t come as a shock to us.”

The BBC approached Kosti criminal court for comment, but has not received a reply.

It was not possible to ask the Justice Minister for an official response because the post is unfilled.

A spokesman for Sudan’s embassy in London said: “We are fully aware of this case and as far as we know, this is not the court’s final decision. We have contacted the justice authorities in Sudan in this regard, and we are awaiting their response.”

Britons Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner, and Brahim Saaudun are accused of being mercenaries, Russian state media says.

The court, which is not internationally recognised, is in the pro-Russian so-called Donetsk People’s Republic.

The UK and Ukraine have condemned the sentences for violating international laws protecting prisoners of war.

The Britons’ families have insisted they are long-serving members of the Ukrainian military and not mercenaries.

The men’s lawyer said they all wished to appeal against the sentence, Russia’s Tass news agency reports.

All three men were charged with being mercenaries, the violent seizure of power and undergoing training to carry out terrorist activities, RIA Novosti said.

The UK government is “deeply concerned” over the death sentences given to Mr Aslin and Mr Pinner and was continuing to work with Ukraine to secure both men’s release, Downing Street has said.

A spokesman added that prisoners of war “shouldn’t be exploited for political purposes” and pointed to the laws of war laid out in the Geneva Conventions – which confers “combatant immunity” on prisoners of war.

Foreign Secretary Liz Truss condemned the sentencing and described it as a “sham judgement with absolutely no legitimacy”.

“My thoughts are with the families. We continue to do everything we can to support them.”

Commissioner of police, Christian Ngoy Kenga Kenga was found guilty of murder, desertion and misappropriation of weapons and ammunition.

Mr Chebeya’s body was found bound and gagged in his car in Kinshasa.

There is a moratorium on capital punishments in DR Congo.

However, the death penalty has not been abolished and military courts continue to hand down such sentences.

Another policeman, Jacques Migabo, was also sentenced to 12 years during the trial.

He admitted to having strangled Mr Chebeya and his driver, Fidèle Bazana.

Police commissioner Paul Mwilambwe, who had been a key witness in the trial, was acquitted, UN-sponsored Radio Okapi says.

Mr Mwilambwe, who had been a fugitive since the murder and was only repatriated last year, named ex-President Joseph Kabila and the former head of police General John Numbi, as having ordered the killing.

Neither Mr Kabila nor Gen Numbi have commented publicly, but a military court has charged the general with the murder of Mr Chebeya and his driver.

He has fled the country and his current whereabouts are not known.

Kenga, Migabo and Mr Mwilambwe were initially sentenced to death in 2011, with Kenga arrested in 2020 in the southern city of Lubumbashi before the case was re-opened last September.

Mr Chebeya led the Congolese charity Voice of the Voiceless, and as a prominent critic of the government received regular death threats during his career of more than 20 years.

He went to the police headquarters to meet the then head of the national police force, Gen Numbi, on the day he was killed.

His driver Mr Bazana also went missing that day with authorities later pronouncing him dead.

The killing of Mr Chebeya prompted widespread international condemnation.

Abid Malhi and Shafqat Hussain were also sentenced to 14 years’ imprisonment, time that must be served before any executions can take place, a judge in Lahore said.

The sentence is seen as a key landmark in Pakistan where many rapes remain unpunished, but many death sentences are later commuted to life imprisonment.

Prosecutors said Malhi and Ali found the woman waiting for help in her car after she ran out of fuel in the eastern province of Punjab.

She had locked the car doors but the attackers broke a window and dragged her outside where they attacked her at gunpoint in front of her terrified children.

The men also stole money, jewellery and bank cards before fleeing.

They were tracked down via mobile phone data and arrested days after the incident, with DNA samples taken from the crime scene matching those of the men.

The crime drew widespread condemnation across the nation, with some activists demanding that those involved be hanged in public, while others protested on the streets demanding the need for legal reforms to protect women and children.

Fewer than 3% of sexual assault or rape cases result in a conviction in Pakistan, according to the Karachi-based group War Against Rape.

In December, Pakistan introduced a new rape law, creating special courts in a bid to speed up prosecutions and setting up a national sex offender registry.

Malhi and Ali did not hire lawyers and their state-appointed representatives were not available for comment following the sentencing, however, appeals or commutations are likely.