By Abba Gwale
The Court of Appeal sitting in Abuja has affirmed the death sentence imposed on Maryam Sanda over the murder of her husband, Bilyamin Mohammed Bello, years back.
The Federal Government had arraigned Sanda and three others on a two-count charges bordering on culpable homicide.
She was convicted and sentenced to death by hanging on January 27, 2020, by Yusuf Halilu, the trial judge.
In his ruling, Halilu asserted that, “Convict also clearly deserves to die, accordingly I hereby sentence Maryam Sanda to death by hanging until she dies.”
Not satisfied by the trial court judgement, Sanda through her counsel, appealed to the appellate court seeking to upturn the trial court’s judgment.
Her counsels described the initial judgment as “a miscarriage of justice”, citing “lack of confessional statement, absence of murder weapon, lack of corroboration of evidence by two or more witnesses and lack of autopsy report to determine the true cause of her husband’s death.”
They also faulted the trial judge whom they submitted had “erred and misdirected himself by usurping the role of the police when he assumed the duty of an investigating police officer (IPO) as contained in page 76 of his judgment…”
