The appellate court, in a unanimous judgement by a three-man panel of Justices led by Justice Stephen Adah, said it found no reason to set aside the verdict of a High Court of the Federal Capital Territory, which okayed Maryam to die by hanging.
It held that the 20 grounds of appeal Maryam had lodged to challenge her conviction and sentence were unfounded and deserved to be dismissed. Maryam, who was on Jan. 27, was found guilty of killing the knife of her husband Bilyamin Bello, a real estate developer at their Abuja residence in 2017, who claimed in her appeal that the trial court denied her a fair hearing. She accused the trial judge, Judge Yusuf Halilu, of bias, insisting that he relied on circumstantial and unheard of evidence to sentence her to death. The convict told the appellate court that she lacked her ID card, the absence of a murder weapon, the lack of corroboration of evidence by two witnesses and the lack of an autopsy report to determine the true cause of her husband's death. Insisting that the trial court’s verdict had caused serious injustice against her, Maryam begged the appellate court to acquit her and acquit her of the murder for which she was convicted. She argued that the judge's failure to rule on the preliminary objection she had filed to challenge the charge against her and the court's jurisdiction to represent her on the basis of evidence of bias and lack of a fair hearing rendered the judgment null and void.
According to her, “the trial judge erred in law when having taken arguments on her 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.”
Besides, she alleged that the Judge erred and misdirected himself by usurping the role of the police when he assumed the duty of an Investigating Police Officer (IPO).
She quoted the trial Judge to have said: “I wish to state that I have a duty thrust upon me to investigate and discover what will satisfy the interest and demands of justice.”
Maryam, through her lawyer, Mr J. K. Gadazama, SAN, maintained that the trial judge failed to restrict himself to the evidence that was adduced before the court.
“The court’s 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”, she argued.
She prayed the appellate court to set aside her conviction and the sentence imposed by the high court Judge and acquit her of the charge.
However, the appellate court, in the lead judgement that was delivered by Justice Adah, said it was not in doubt that the appellant killed her husband.
The appellate court, however, faulted the trial court judge for his failure to rule on Maryam’s preliminary objection before he delivered final judgement in the matter.
It, therefore, invoked its powers under section 6(6) (a) of the 1999 Constitution, as amended, and dismissed Maryam’s pending preliminary objection for want of merit.
The court held that the trial judge was right in his verdict, stressing that the offence of culpable homicide committed by the appellant, is punishable by death under section 221 of the Penal Code.
The court noted that there was evidence that the appellate murdered her husband during a fight that ensued after she saw a nude picture of a girl on his phone.
The trial court based its verdict on circumstantial evidence, Maryam's testimony during the trial and her statement before the police, which she determined to have stabbed her husband to death in Abuja on November 19, 2017. The court ordered the convict to remain in the Sulej Penitentiary until she exhausted her right to appeal. In an indictment marked CR / 15/17, filed under section 109 (d) of the Criminal Justice Act, police alleged that Maryam stabbed her husband to death with a broken bottle at their residence in Abuja. The prosecution told the court that Bilyamin died from several stab wounds to the chest and neck. Police claimed that the accused attacked her husband knowing that her act was likely to cause his death. She was equally charged with the criminal offense of "causing grievous bodily harm", contrary to Article 247 of the Criminal Code. Although Maryama’s mother, Maimuna Aliyu, her brother, Aliyu Sanda and one Sadiya Aminu, were initially charged as co-defendants in the case, the court later dismissed them. The prosecution claimed that Maryama's family members tried to destroy the evidence linking her to the murder. Maryam, who is a mother of two, testified during the trial, denying allegations that she killed her husband.
She claimed that her husband slipped and fell to a broken Shisha pot.
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