The Supreme Court, on Friday, nullified President Bola Tinubu’s decision to reduce the death sentence of Maryam Sanda, daughter-in-law of a former Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and reaffirmed the capital punishment earlier handed down to her for culpable homicide.
Sanda was sentenced to death by hanging by an Abuja High Court on January 27, 2020, after she was found guilty of stabbing her husband, Bilyamin Bello, to death at their Abuja residence in 2017. She had spent over six years and eight months in Suleja prison before President Tinubu exercised executive powers to commute her sentence to 12 years’ imprisonment.
Explaining her inclusion in the presidential pardon list, the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Prince Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, said the decision was taken “on compassionate ground and in the best interest of the children,” adding that Sanda had demonstrated “good conduct, embraced new lifestyle, model to prisoners and remorsefulness.”
However, in a split decision of four-to-one, a five-member panel of the Supreme Court set aside the President’s intervention and reinstated the death sentence. The apex court held that all the issues Sanda raised in her appeal lacked merit.
Delivering the lead judgment, Justice Moore Adumein ruled that the prosecution had successfully proved its case beyond reasonable doubt. He affirmed that the Court of Appeal’s earlier decision, which validated the trial court’s judgment, remained “unassailable.”
The Supreme Court further held that President Tinubu, as head of the executive arm of government, acted outside the law by attempting to grant a pardon in a homicide case that was still undergoing appellate review.
