Maryam Sanda, the lady who was sentenced to death for killing her husband Bilyaminu Bello in 2017, will now walk free.
The 37-year-old mother of two had stabbed Bello to death with a broken groundnut bottle in the neck, chest and genitals after accusing him of infidelity on November 9, 2017.
She also claimed to have asked for a divorce before the violent incident happened.
Interestingly, Sanda had earlier been prevented from stabbing the deceased to death with the same bottle by a visitor on the same day.
She eventually murdered the victim later in the night and this led to a widely-followed court trial.
BROKEN SHISHA POT CLAIM
After the incident, Sanda was taken to court on a two-count homicide charge by the police.
While standing trial, Sanda denied stabbing or using any weapon on Bello. She went on to claim that her husband died from a chest wound after falling over a broken Shisha pot.
“He (Bello) pushed me and as I was falling down, I mistakenly broke his Shisha bottle and the water inside spilled on the floor,” Sanda said at the time.
Sanda further claimed her late husband fell against the broken Shisha pot in an attempt to hold her down.
“I saw a broken bottle prick into his chest which I removed and I covered the chest with a scarf,” said Sanda.
MURDER SCENE TAMPERED WITH BY AN ‘INFLUENTIAL MOTHER’ AND BROTHER
While standing as a witness in the trial, Hamza Abdullahi, a laundry man who assisted Sanda in taking the deceased’s body to the hospital, confirmed that the bloodstains he initially noticed at the murder scene had been wiped clean by unknown persons by the time he returned to the couple’s house.
Simon Okon, another witness in the trial who happened to be a police officer, said he did not see any blood pattern or trail when he visited the murder scene.
It was later revealed that Maimuna Aliyu and Aliyu Sanda, the accused’s mother and brother, had visited the house to clean the crime scene before heading to the police station to report the incident.
After becoming an accomplice to the crime that was committed by her daughter, Maimuna went into hiding.
MAIMUNA SO INFLUENTIAL SHE GOT AN ICPC BOARD APPOINTMENT WHILE UNDER INVESTIGATION FOR CORRUPTION
Such was Maimuna’s influence in national politics that she was one of 14 persons nominated by former Vice President Yemi Osinbajo to the board of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) in August 2017 despite being under investigation for multimillion-naira corruption.
She was later removed from the list of the commission’s prospective board members after an exclusive report by the ICIR detailed how charges were in fact already being prepared against her by the ICPC, preparatory to taking her to court, when her name was announced as a member of the new board of the commission.
Maimuna, a former Executive Director of the Aso Savings and Loans, had converted a total of N58 million, being proceeds of three plots of land belonging to her employers, to personal use.
It was also later revealed that Maimuna had in turn sold the three plots of land for N120 million.
The same Maimuna was also accused of abuse of office and conversion and diversion of Aso Savings and Loans funds, totalling nearly N1 billion.
GRANTED BAIL ON ‘ILLNESS AND PREGNANCY GROUNDS’
On Mach 7, 2018, Yusuf Halilu, the judge who presided over the matter, granted Sanda bail after a medical report confirmed that she was not only ill but had also been pregnant for a few months.
Prior to this, Sanda had twice been denied bail requests by the same judge.
A few doubts were, however, raised when Sanda and her legal team brought the pregnancy claim forward.
The first doubt that was raised was the fact that the accused was known to be a nursing mother who had a six-month-old baby with her at the beginning of the trial. How was it then possible that she was also pregnant with another baby at the time?
Secondly, Joseph Daudu, Sanda’s lawyer at the time, never mentioned to the court that his client was pregnant while filing the previous bail applications that were turned down by the judge.
The last question that was asked was: how was it possible that Sanda was already pregnant at the time she murdered her husband and never knew about it, given that she already had a child and was therefore no stranger to pregnancy and its symptoms?
SENTENCED TO DEATH BY HANGING
After more than two years of delayed trials and several adjournments, Sanda was sentenced to death by hanging for killing Bello.
Sanda, dubbed the “killer wife” while the trial lasted, was handed the sentence on January 27, 2020.
Bello, her deceased husband, was the nephew of Haliru Bello, a former National Chairman of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP).
CLEMENCY BY THE PRESIDENT
On Saturday, President Bola Tinubu granted clemency to Sanda, who had been convicted to die by hanging by an Abuja High Court, effectively putting paid to the Bello family’s hopes of getting justice for their late kinsman.
