Maryam Sanda Appeals Court Judgement Which Sentenced Her To Death For Killing Her Husband

Published: February 21, 2020

Convicted husband killer, Maryam Sanda has filed an appeal against the judgement of a High Court of the Federal Capital Territory that convicted and sentenced her to death for killing her husband, Bilyaminu Bello.

KanyiDaily recalls that Maryam Sanda was sentenced to death by hanging on January 27, 2020, by Justice Yusuf Halilu who found her guilty of stabbing Bilyaminu to death.

Late Bilyaminu was the son of a former National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Mr Haliru Bello.

In the appeal filed on her behalf by her team of counsel led by Ricky Tarfa (SAN), Maryam Sanda said the trial judge, Justice Yusuf Halilu, was tainted by bias and prejudices, adding that the judgement against her was completely “a miscarriage of justice.”

“The honourable trial judge erred in law when having taken arguments on the appellant’s preliminary objection to the validity of the charge on March 19, 2018, failed to rule on it at the conclusion of the trial or at any other time.

“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 and therefore fundamentally breached the right to a fair hearing of the defendant,” the appeal application partly reads.

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 as contained in Page 76 of his judgement.

It was submitted that “the circumstantial evidence which the trial court relied upon in its application of the last seen doctrine does not lead to the conclusion that the defendant is responsible for the death of the deceased.”

Maryam Sanda, therefore, prayed the Court of Appeal to allow her appeal, set aside her conviction and sentence imposed by Justice Halilu and acquit her. No date has been fixed for hearing in the matter.

Meanwhile, another 17-year-old housewife, Rabi Rabi’u, has confessed to stabbing her husband to death over a phone charger at Danjaku village in the Malumfashi Local Government Area of Katsina State.