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Nigeria’s Supreme Court has upheld the death sentence handed to Maryam Sanda for the murder of her husband, Bilyaminu Bello, by the Court of Appeal.
President Tinubu had reduced Sanda’s sentence to 12 years’ imprisonment on compassionate grounds.
However, in a judgment on Friday, the Supreme Court, in a split decision of four-to-one, affirmed the death sentence handed to Sanda by the Court of Appeal, Abuja, which upheld the decision of a High Court of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), sentencing her to death by hanging.
The apex Court resolved all the issues raised in the appeal she filed against her and dismissed it as without merit.
Justice Moore Adumein held in the lead judgment, which he personally delivered, that the prosecution proved the case beyond a reasonable doubt as required, adding that the Court of Appeal was right to have affirmed the judgment of the trial court.
Justice Adumein held that it was wrong for the Executive to seek to exercise its power of pardon over a case of culpable homicide, in respect of which an appeal was pending.
A High Court in Abuja had on January 27, 2020, sentenced her to death by hanging after she was found guilty of stabbing her husband, Bilyamin Bello, to death at their Abuja residence in 2017.
Though she had already served about six years and eight months at the Suleja prison, President Bola Tinubu, in the exercise of his executive powers, reduced her sentence to 12 years.
