Maryam Sanda and her late husband
Supreme Court has affirmed the death sentence handed down to Maryam Sanda, the daughter-in-law of a former chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), bringing to a close her long legal battle over the killing of her husband.
In a split decision of four justices to one, a five-member panel of the apex court upheld the verdict ordering Sanda’s death by hanging for culpable homicide. The court dismissed her appeal in its entirety, ruling that it lacked merit.
Delivering the lead judgment, Justice Moore Adumein held that the prosecution proved its case beyond reasonable doubt, leaving no room for the court to interfere with the decisions of the lower courts.
“The Court of Appeal’s judgment affirming the conviction and sentence imposed by the trial court is unassailable,” the Supreme Court ruled.
The justices resolved all issues raised by Sanda in her bid to overturn her conviction and sentence, firmly restating the earlier judicial pronouncements against her.
The apex court also faulted the attempt by President Bola Tinubu, as head of the executive arm of government, to exercise the power of pardon in a case of culpable homicide that was still pending before the courts. It held that such intervention was inappropriate while the appeal process had not been exhausted.
Maryam Sanda was sentenced to death by hanging on January 27, 2020, by an Abuja High Court after she was found guilty of stabbing her husband, Bilyamin Bello, to death at their residence in Abuja in 2017.
Although she had already spent about six years and eight months in custody at the Suleja Correctional Centre, President Tinubu later commuted her sentence to 12 years’ imprisonment.
Explaining the decision at the time, the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), said her inclusion in the presidential pardon list was based on “compassionate grounds and in the best interest of the children.”
According to Fagbemi, factors that earned her clemency included “good conduct, embraced a new lifestyle, model to prisoners, and remorsefulness.”
