Maryan Sanda, who was convicted by the High Court of the Federal capital territory and sentenced to death by hanging for stabbing her husband to death has appealed the judgement of the Court. The trial court had found her guilty of stabbing her husband, Bilyamin Bello, a real estate developer to death at their Abuja residence in 2017.
Sanda filed a 20-grounds of appeal before the Court of Appeal in Abuja through her counsel, led by Rickey Tarfa, SAN.
In her appeal, she accused the trial judge, Justice Yusuf Halilu of miscarriage of justice. According to her, Justice Halilu failed to grant her the right to fair hearing in the determination of her case and also relied on circumstantial evidence in arriving at the conviction and sentencing.
According to her appeal, the prosecution failed to present a confessional statement, the murder weapon, evidence of two prosecution witnesses lacked corroboration no autopsy report was presented to determine the true cause of her husband’s death.
“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”,
Some of the grounds of appeal which she relied on argued that the trial judge assumed the position of the investigating police officer rather than relying on whatever evidence presented to him by the prosecution.
In her appeal she said;
“The trial judge failed to restrict himself to the evidence adduced before the court” and instead went fishing for evidence outside those that were brought before the court Vanguard news reported.
“The duty of investigation is the constitutional preserve of the police, “the constitutional duty of a trial court is to assess the credible evidence before it and reach a decision based on its assessment.”
“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.”
Maryam Sanda then prayed the appellate court to set aside the conviction and sentence of the trial court and acquit her of the charge.