Maryam Sanda who was found guilty of killing her husband, has recently filed an appeal against the death sentence she was handed by a Federal High Court in Abuja.
She asked the Court of Appeal to set aside the verdict and acquit her, on grounds of the death sentence being tainted by bias and prejudice by Justice Yusuf Halilu who handed her the death sentence.
Maryam stated she wasn’t given a fair hearing and was convicted on based on evidence by the trial judge who reportedly did not rule on her preliminary objection, challenging the charge preferred against her. She said in her application;
“The honourable trial judge erred in law when having taken arguments on the appellant’s preliminary objection to the validity of the charge on the 19th of March, 2018 failed to rule on it at the conclusion of the trial or at any other time.
The trial judge exhibited bias against the defendant in not ruling one way or the other on the said motion challenging his jurisdiction to entertain the charge and therefore fundamentally breached the right to a fair hearing of the defendant.
The circumstantial evidence which the trial court relied upon in its application of the last seen doctrine does not lead to the conclusion that the defendant is responsible for the death of the deceased.”
No date has been fixed for hearing in the matter.