A lawyer says a young Sudanese woman convicted of killing her husband while she claims he was raping her has been sentenced to death.

He says his client, Noura Hussein, 19, had been forced into marriage by her parents three years ago and had initially fled her husband, refusing to consummate the marriage.

The lawyer, Ahmed Sebair, says the husband returned with relatives who held Hussein down while he raped her. When they were alone the next day and he attempted to rape her again, she managed to grab a knife he had used to threaten her and stabbed him to death with it.

Sebair says he and Hussein's other lawyers are now appealing the Thursday decision by the Criminal court in Omdurman, Sudan's second-largest city.