Maryam Sanda has filed an appeal on the death sentence handed to her.

The death sentence was given to her by a Federal High Court in Abuja which found her guilty of killing her husband, Bilyaminu Bello.

Maryam asked the court of appeal in Abuja to acquit her on the ground that justice Yusuf Halilu handed her the death sentence was “tainted by bias and prejudices”.

She alleged she wasn’t given a fair trial and was convicted by circumstantial evidence.

She backed her claim by pointing out the 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.

She said ;

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.”

Maryam added 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.

She added; 

“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”.