The 14 year old child bride, Wasila Tasi’u who was charged with killing her 35 year old husband, Umar Sani, in 2014 with rat poison has been acquitted by the court.
According to reports, Wasila’s defence attorney had called on the High Court sitting in Gezawa, Kano State on Monday, May 18, 2015 to dismiss the murder charges against her.
“We urge your lordship to discharge and acquit the accused,” the defence attorney, Hussaina Aliyu, said. She argued that the prosecution failed in their duty to prove Wasila’s intent for killing the man and the cause of his death.
She went ahead to question the admissibility of the prosecution’s seven year old key witness who had been one of Sani’s dependents before his death.
In a new development, the prosecuting attorney, Lamido Abba Soron-Dinki has asked the court to “terminate the case of culpable homicide against Wasila Tasi’u.” He added, “With a heavy heart, I apply that the accused be discharged.”
According to sources in Kano State, the prosecution had earlier called for a death penalty against her but that several human rights groups and the international community did not relent in their efforts to pressure the court to dismiss the case seeing as she had been married against her will as a child bride.
