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How Maryam Sanda Testifies Against Herself To Death

The Abuja High Court sitting has on Monday convicted and sentenced Maryam Sanda to death by hanging for stabbing her husband to death.

Justice Yusuf Halilu, the presiding judge held that the circumstantial evidence before the court, as well as Maryam’s testimony during the trial and her statement before the police, established that she fatally stabbed her husband to death in Abuja on November 19, 2017.

Maryam who is a mother of two and her family members could not contain their tears after the court found her guilty as charged. Her mother wept uncontrollably as she sped out of the court from where she sat at the back row.

Likewise, Maryam who broke down in the dock attempted to run out of the courtroom but was blocked and brought back by security operatives.

Maryam Sanda had in her testimony before the court, admitted that the two-year marriage that produced a baby girl, was fraught with quarrels.

She denied killing her husband, revealing however that she had requested for the night they had the argument that led to a fight.

Giving her own account of what happened, she said: “He pushed me and as I was falling down, I mistakenly broke his Shisha bottle and the water inside spilled on the floor.

“He pinned me to the ground and I heard our daughter crying. I told him to leave me so that I could attend to her and he loosened up a bit and I struggled to my feet.”

She claimed that her late husband fell against the broken Shisha pot in an attempt to hold her down again.

“I saw a broken bottle pricked into his chest which I removed and covered the chest with a scarf”, saying she immediately rushed him to Maitama General Hospital where he was confirmed dead.

READ ALSO: Maryam Sanda To Die By Hanging For Killing Husband

The court ordered that the convict should remain at the Correctional Center in Suleja till she exhausts her right of appeal.

In the charge marked CR/15/17 which Police filed pursuant to section 109(d) of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act, 2015, Maryam was accused of stabbing her husband to death with a broken bottle, at their Abuja residence.

The prosecution told the court that Bilyamin died as a result of several stabs on his chest and neck. Police maintained that the defendant attacked her husband with the knowledge that her act was likely to cause his death.

She was equally charged with the offence of “causing grievous hurt”, contrary to section 247 of the Penal Code Law.

Though her mother, Maimuna Aliyu, her brother, Aliyu Sanda and one Sadiya Aminu, were initially charged as a co-defendant in the matter, they were discharged by the court which held that they had no case to answer with respect to the murder charge.

The prosecution had alleged that Maryam’s family members attempted to destroy evidence that linked her to the murder.

It alleged that upon realizing that an offence of culpable homicide was committed, the other defendants, “did cause evidence of the offence to disappear”.

It said the other defendants had carefully cleaned the blood from the scene of the crime with the intention of screening the 1st defendant, Maryam from legal punishment.

According to the prosecution, the three persons involved in the scrubbing-off of murdered Bilyamin’s blood, by their action, committed an offence punishable under section 167 of the Penal Code Law.

The court however held that Police failed by way of credible evidence, establish a prima-facie case against Maryam’s family members.

While passing his Judgement, Justice Halilu held: “It has been said that thou shall not kill. Whoever kills in cold blood shall die in cold blood”.

“Maryam Sanda should reap what she has sown,” the Judge added, stressing that, “it is blood for blood”.

He found the defendant guilty on the two-count culpable homicide charge the Nigerian Police Force entered against her.

The judge held that the prosecution proved that the defendant killed her husband by stabbing him and tried to conceal her action by claiming he fell on a broken bottle.

Justice Haliru said it was obvious from the totality of the evidence before the court that disagreement broke out between the defendant and her husband after she saw a nude picture of a female in her husband’s phone when she wanted to use it.

Police closed its case against the defendants after it produced a total of six witnesses that testified before the court.

 

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