Appeal Court Upholds Maryam Sanda’s Death Sentence

BY EDMOND ODOK, ABUJA –The Court of Appeal sitting in Abuja has upheld the death sentence handed down on Maryam Sanda, convicted for murdering her husband, Bilyaminu  Bello.

Maryam, who is a mother of one, was found guilty of stabbing to death Bilyaminu, the son of former Chairman of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Haliru Bello.

A three-man panel of the court, in a judgment on Friday afternoon, dismissed Sandra’s appeal for lacking in merit.

Earlier this year, a High Court of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) in convicting Maryam for murder, ordered that she be hanged.

Justice Yusuf Halilu had found Ms Sanda guilty of killing her husband by stabbing him with a kitchen knife with a clear intent to kill.

Justice Halilu delivered the judgment in a two-count homicide charge brought by the Nigerian police against Ms Sanda in November 2017.

The prosecuting counsel had canvassed that the court pronounce a death penalty on Ms Sanda and this position was obliged by the judge.

With some perceiving that the judgment of Justice Halilu as being ‘harsh’, Ms Sanda in her appeal against the death sentence, claimed that Justice Halilu was biased and therefore denied her fair hearing.

Her counsel further contended that the conviction was based on circumstantial evidence, without 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.

Predicated on 20 grounds and filed by her counsel, Rickey Tarfa, Maryam in her notice of appeal argued that the trial Court judgment was a complete “a miscarriage of justice.”