A defense lawyer on Monday called for the dismissal of murder charges against a 14-year-old girl accused of killing her 35-year-old husband with rat poison in the country’s deeply conservative north.
“We urge your lordship to discharge and acquit the accused,” lawyer Hussaina Aliyu said at the High Court in Gezawa, a small town outside the state capital, Kano.
Prosecutors say Wasila Tasiu, who comes from a poor and deeply conservative Muslim family, poisoned the food served at a party last year after marrying Umar Sani in Kano State, in a case that has thrown a spotlight on child marriage.
Aliyu said the prosecution has failed to establish a link between the cause of Sani’s death and Tasiu’s intent to kill the man, who was in his mid-thirties.
The lawyer also questioned the admissibility of a key witness of the prosecution — a seven-year-old girl identified as Hamziyya — who was living in Sani’s house when he died.
Hamziyya is the sister of Tasiu’s “co-wife,” referring to a woman that the deceased farmer had married previously in a region where polygamy is widespread.
The young girl testified that Tasiu gave her money to buy rat poison from a local shop, but the defense claimed the state had breached the law by calling a seven-year-old witness. Prosecutors seeking the death penalty say they have provided sufficient evidence to support their case.
The court is expected to decide whether it will dismiss the charge by March 31.
Both Sani’s family and Tasiu’s own parents have denied she was forced into marriage, claiming instead that 14 is a standard marrying age in northern Nigeria and that she chose Sani from a range of suitors.
Rights activists have condemned the prosecution, arguing that Tasiu should be treated as a victim entitled to treatment. Legal opinion on whether Tasiu can be tried for murder as an adult is also divided, but a previous defense motion calling for her case to be referred to a juvenile court was rejected.
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