A SCOTTISH businessman has been sentenced to death by hanging in Nigeria for murdering his Australian girlfriend.

Ian Millar, 54, a company director and long-term resident of the West African nation, was charged with killing Anne Gale, 43, at their home in Lagos, in April last year.

He denied the allegation, but Justice Grace Onyeabor sentenced him to death after hearing medical evidence and testimony from domestic staff at the couple's home during a two-day trial.

Millar launched an appeal last Friday, the day after he was sentenced at the High Court in Lagos. The Foreign Office said he was originally from Scotland but could give no further details.

He was arrested last April and spent much of the time since the case opened in a Lagos hospital, where he was being treated for diabetes.

Millar is now being held at Kirkiri maximum security prison. Under Nigerian law the state governor, who must sign the death warrant, can also commute the sentence.

Although murder, armed robbery and treason are punishable by hanging in the West African state, no-one sentenced under common law has been hung since military rule ended in 1999.

Last year, however, under Sharia or Islamic law, which operates in the north of the country, a man was hanged for killing a woman and her two children.

Innocent Chukwuma, president of the Centre for Law Enforcement Education, based in Lagos, said Millar could languish on death row for years.

''There is a sort of informal moratorium on executions,'' he said. ''Governors have not been signing execution orders. Some convicted murderers have been waiting in jail for between 10 and 20 years.''

The Foreign Office said it would offer Millar assistance, and that any appeal may not be heard until February.

A spokeswoman said: ''We can confirm that a British national was convicted of murder in the High Court in Lagos on October 23, and was sentenced to death by hanging.

''He is originally from Scotland. We understand that he will be lodging an appeal, but that will be a matter for his lawyer.''

She added: ''We oppose the death penalty in all circumstances. We will be consulting our honorary legal adviser in Nigeria to decide what course of action to take.''

The Guardian newspaper in Lagos reported that Millar and Miss Gale had been joint directors and founders of Ian Consultants Limited. Millar had also been a general manager of a glass manufacturing company in Ondo State, and more recently had held an executive director's post with a merchant bank in the country, according to the newspaper.

It said Millar was accused of killing Miss Gale on, or about, April 12, 2002, and leaving her body under her room in their house in Apapa, the port district of Lagos, until it was discovered on April 14.

The newspaper said a medical testimony showed her injuries were consistent with having been strangled.

Domestic staff who worked for the couple testified that there had been no break-in at the home. The cook, who had served the accused for eight years, said Miss Gale's dinners had gone uneaten for a week before her body was found.

Millar's defence counsel argued that the prosecution had failed to demonstrate his guilt beyond all reasonable doubt, but Justice Onyeabor said: ''The only conclusion reasonable and irresistible in the circumstances is that the deceased died in the hands of the accused.''

Justice Onyeahor added: ''The sentence of this court upon you Ian Millar is that you be hanged on the neck until you be dead. May the Lord have mercy on you.''