Maryam Sanda has been sentenced to death by a Federal High Court judge in Abuja for the 2017 murder of her husband, Bilyaminu Bello.
The murder was high profile because her husband was the son of a former People’s Democratic Party chairman, Haliru Bello.
The judge, on Monday, January 27, 2020 dismissed Ms. Sanda’s claim that her husband fell on a broken Shisha pot during a fight.
The murder convicted reacted to the judgement by screaming, crying, and lamenting over her fate in her local language. She could be seen in videos on social media being comforted by her lawyer while in the dock.
In delivering judgement against the accused, Justice Yusuf Halilu said there was compelling evidence to convict the accused.
The judge had earlier dismissed Sanda’s claim that her husband fell on a broken Shisha pot during the fight that led to his death. Police had argued that she stabbed her husband with a broken bottle with the intention of killing him.
According to the judge, this is a “smokescreen to deceive the court”.
He ruled Sanda intentionally stabbed her husband with a kitchen knife with intent to ”kill”.
News reports say that she attempted to run out of the courtroom when the sentence was read by the judge.
She had been on bail throughout the trial. She and her late husband had a son. She was nursing him when the murder occurred.
After her sentencing, Maryam Sanda was whisked away from the court by officials of the Nigerian Correctional Service as her friends and family members wailed.
In another news report, gunmen on Saturday, January 26, attacked vehicles conveying travellers shortly after arriving Rigasa railway station from Abuja, injured some of them and abducted several others.
News Agency report (NAN) gathered that the attack occurred along the road linking airport road from the railway station at about 8pm.
