Three weeks
after she was sentenced to death by an Abuja High Court following the murder of
her husband, Bilyaminu Bello, Maryam Sanda has approached the Court of Appeal,
Abuja Division, praying it to set aside the verdict and acquit her.
She
submitted the trial judge was tainted by bias and prejudices, which led to
the denial of her right to fair hearing and her consequent conviction based on
circumstantial evidence.
This she
stated, was despite the reasonable doubt that was created by evidence of
witnesses, lack of confessional statement, absence of murder weapon, lack of
corroboration of evidence by two or more witnesses and lack of autopsy report
to determine the true cause of her husband’s death.
In the
notice of appeal predicated on 20 grounds and filed by her legal team composed
of Rickey Tarfa (SAN), Olusegun Jolaawo (SAN), Regina Okotie-Eboh and Beatrice
Tarfa, Sanda said the judgment of the trial court was completely, “a
miscarriage of justice.”
She pointed
to the failure of the trial judge to rule, one way or the other, on her
preliminary objection, challenging the charge preferred against her and the
jurisdiction of the court as evidence of bias and a denial of her right to fair
hearing as constitutionally guaranteed.
Upon taking
arguments from the defence and prosecution counsel on the said preliminary
objection on March 19, 2018, Justice Halilu had held thus: “I have seen the
charge before me … objection which is on the whole based on defective charge.
Having been taken shall be ruled upon at the conclusion of trial. I rely on
section 396(2) of Administration of Criminal Justice Act, 2015.”
She
submitted that, “the honourable trial judge erred in law when having taken
arguments on the appellant’s preliminary objection to the validity of the
charge on March 19, 2018, failed to rule on it at the conclusion of trial or at
any other time.”
According to
her legal team, “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 fair
hearing of the defendant.”
On ground two,
the appellant contended that the trial judge erred and misdirected himself by
usurping the role of the police when he assumed the duty of an Investigating
Police Officer (IPO) as contained in Page 76 of his judgment.
The
appellant submitted that the wrongful assumption of the role of an IPO made
“the trial judge fail to restrict himself to the evidence adduced before the
court” and instead went fishing for evidence outside those that were brought
before the court.
She insisted
that while “the duty of investigation is the constitutional preserve of the
police, “the constitutional duty of a trial court is to assess the credible
evidence before it and reach a decision based on its assessment.”
She argued
that “the trial’s court usurpation of the duty of the police by taking it upon
itself to investigate and discover negatively coloured its assessment of the
available evidence and resulted in it reaching an unjust decision contrary to
the evidence before it.”
On ground five,
the appellant argued that “the trial judge erred in law and misdirected himself
on the facts when he applied the doctrine of last seen and held at pages 82 –
83 of his judgment that the appellant was the person last seen with the
deceased and thus bears the full responsibility for the death of the deceased,
and thereby occasioned a miscarriage of justice.”
According to
the particulars of error in support of ground five, “there is no evidence
before the trial judge that the defendant was the last person who saw the
deceased alive” since “PW2 (Prosecution Witness 2), in his evidence, before the
trial judge stated that he was called by the deceased, he saw the deceased and
asked the deceased what was the problem.”
She added
that Exhibit F, the statement of Sadiya Aminu, tendered before the trial court
(who was initially charged as 4th defendant in the amended charge) also
confirmed that the deceased was alive though injured when she saw him.
It was
submitted that “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.”
Consequently,
she prayed the Court of Appeal to allow her appeal, set aside her conviction
and sentences imposed by Justice Halilu and acquit her.
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