The Supreme Court affirmed Maryam Sanda’s death sentence for the murder of her husband, Bilyamin Bello, on Friday.
She is the daughter-in-law of a former National Chairman of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP.
On January 27, 2020, an Abuja High Court convicted Sanda of fatally stabbing Bello in their Maitama home in 2017.
She was ultimately sentenced to death by hanging.
She had served six years and eight months at the Suleja Correctional Centre until President Bola Tinubu commuted her sentence to 12 years in prison.
The Attorney General of the Federation, Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), later defended her inclusion in the presidential pardon, saying it was granted “on compassionate grounds and in the best interest of the children,” adding that her record of “good conduct, new lifestyle, model behavior, and remorsefulness” was part of the justification.
However, in a four-to-one judgment on Friday, a five-member bench of the Supreme Court upheld the original death penalty.
The court dismissed her appeal in its entirety, stating that she failed to demonstrate any error in the lower courts’ concurrent findings.
Justice Moore Adumein delivered the lead judgment, concluding that the prosecution proved the accusation beyond a reasonable doubt and that the Court of Appeal was correct to uphold the conviction.
The Supreme Court also criticized Tinubu’s intervention, stating that it was wrong for the executive to give a pardon in a homicide case while an appeal was pending.
With the decision, the death sentence imposed by the trial court stands.
