Nigerian prosecutors said on Thursday they may
seek
the death penalty against a 14-year-old girl accused
of
murdering her 35-year-old husband by putting rat
poison in his food.
The trial of Wasila Tasi’u, from a poor northern
Nigeria
family, has sparked a heated debate on the role of
underage marriage in the conservative Muslim
region,
especially whether an adolescent girl can consent to
be
a bride.
Prosecutors at the High Court in Gezawa, outside
Nigeria’s second city of Kano, filed an amended
complaint that charged Tasi’u with one count of
murder over the killing of Umar Sani two weeks after
their April wedding in the village of Unguwar
Yansoro.
Lead prosecutor Lamido Abba Soron-Dinki said that
if
proved, the charge is “punishable with death” and
indicated the state would seek the maximum
penalty.
Tasi’u entered the court wearing a cream-coloured
hijab
and was escorted by two policemen.
Her parents, who have condemned their daughter’s
alleged act, were in the public gallery — the first time
the three were in the same room since Tasi’u’s arrest
in
April, her legal representatives said.
The English-language charge sheet was translated
into
Hausa for the accused by the court clerk.
Tasi’u refused to answer when asked if she
understood
the charges.
The case was adjourned for 30 minutes so the charges
could be better explained to the defendant, but when
the alleged offences were read again Tasi’u stayed
silent, turned her head to the wall and broke down
in
tears.
“The court records (that) she pleads not guilty,” Judge
Mohammed Yahaya said, apparently regarding her
silence as equal to a denial of the charges and
adjourned the case until November 26.
Activists, including in Nigeria’s mainly Christian
south, have called for Tasi’u’s immediate release,
saying she should be rehabilitated as a victim and
noting the prospect that she was raped by the man
she
married.
But in the north, Islamic law operates alongside the
secular criminal code, a hybrid system that has
complicated the question of marital consent.
The affected families have denied that Tasi’u was
forced
into marriage, arguing that girls across the
impoverished region marry at 14 and that Tasi’u and
Sani followed the traditional system of courtship.
According to Nigeria’s marriage act, anyone under
21
can marry provided they have parental consent and
so
evidence of an agreement between Tasi’u and her
father
Tasiu Mohammed could undermine claims of a
forced
union.
But defence lawyer Hussaina Aliyu has insisted the
case is not a debate about the role of youth marriage
in
aMuslim society.
Instead, she has argued that under criminal law a
14-
year-old cannot be charged with murder in a high
court and has demanded that the case be moved to
the
juvenile

Source: http://..com.es/2014/10/prosecutors-demand-death-penalty-for-14.html

D man no see him mate?nonsense.sha na their church causam.

This is a serious case. Was it a delibrate attemp to kill her husband? And why? These are yet to be known.

A friend of mine told me a similar sour story about 2 years ago in lag, where a woman's husband and his gangs came to rob the woman. The woman tried to defend herself on the process of she killed her husband. Thereafter, the family of the husband accused the woman of delibrately killing her husband.

[img]http://1.bp..com/-vEpHdWtbwW0/VFN0m39kIUI/AAAAAAABed0/0D3p7TWUazQ/s1600/Part-PAR-Par7949851-1-1-0.jpg[/img]

Sani Garba, holding a picture of his 14-year-old daughter-in-law, Wasila Tasi'u

[img]http://3.bp..com/-rEilqc7Zpm0/VFN080gdk7I/AAAAAAABed8/Nq-et-PmEyQ/s1600/ab38129c52f79a2096469179e1f437366e6540c3.jpg[/img]

Sani Garba, 55, stands in the abandonned bedroom of his 14-year-old daughter-in-law Wasila Tasi'u

they should please temper justice with mercy

khattab02:
This is a serious case. Was it a delibrate attemp to kill her husband? And why?

Did she give him rat poison by mistake?

She should get a trial that is just, but if guilty of murder then needs to face it. Being 14 does not mean you can murder.

God will punish them. If she is given a death sentence

By poisoning a child abuser and killing him like the filthy rat that he is, this child victim of modern-day slavery performed a vital service to society, sending an evil creature to hell where he was long overdue.

Rather than being tried as a criminal, this child escapee from slavery should be considered as a future recipient of a humanitarian award, for her excellent job of showing how to rid the world of truly bad people, one at a time.

I don't even know what to say about this issue, But they caused it for themselves, How can a man marry a girl that is So young to be his daughter?... I'm sure the man has children that are older than this girl. These northerners has got to change their mentality, for goodness sake this is the 21st century.

This is my verdict though; The girl should be left alone, but her life will not be safe there.