Moses Ofodeme
Maryam Sanda, the woman found guilty for stabbing her husband to death; has asked the Court of Appeal in Abuja to set aside the death sentence pronounced on her.
Previously, a Federal Capital Territory (FCT) High Court; had found Maryam Sanda guilty of killing her husband on January 27, after she was accused of stabbing her husband with a kitchen knife with a clear intent to kill.
Consequently, this led to a two-count homicide charge brought against her by the Nigerian Police in November 2017.
The victim, Bilyaminu Bello, was the son of a former National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Haliru Bello.
The prosecuting counsel had urged the court to pronounce a death penalty on Sanda.
The judge obliged by sentencing her to death by hanging.
In her appeal against the death sentence, Maryam Sanda claimed that Justice Yusuf Halilu was biased and had denied her fair hearing.
Further, she contended that the conviction was based on circumstantial evidence.
This means there was no evidence of witnesses, lack of confessional statement, absence of murder weapon, lack of corroboration of evidence by two witnesses and lack of autopsy report; to determine the true cause of her husband’s death.
In the notice of appeal predicated on 20 grounds and filed by her lawyer, Rickey Tarfa; the convict said the judgment of the trial court was a complete “a miscarriage of justice.”
According to Sanda, “the trial judge erred in law when having taken arguments on her preliminary objection to the validity of the charge on the 19th of March, 2018 failed to rule on it; at the conclusion of the trial or at any other time.
She said that “the trial judge exhibited bias against the defendant; in not ruling one way or the other on the said motion challenging his jurisdiction to entertain the charge.”
The appellant also contended that the trial judge erred and misdirected himself by usurping the role of the police when he assumed the duty of an Investigating Police Officer (IPO).
Consequently, she asked the appellate court to allow her appeal; set aside her conviction and the sentence imposed by the high court judge and acquit her.