{"id":69808,"date":"2014-11-29T09:00:16","date_gmt":"2014-11-29T09:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=69808"},"modified":"2014-11-29T07:21:01","modified_gmt":"2014-11-29T07:21:01","slug":"girl-14-faces-death-penalty-for-killing-35-year-old-husband","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=69808","title":{"rendered":"Girl, 14, faces death penalty for killing 35-year-old husband"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A 14-year-old Nigerian child bride is facing the death penalty for allegedly murdering her 35-year-old husband with rat poison.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Prosecutors allege that Wasila Tasi’u, who comes from a poor, rural family in the north of the country, laced her husband Umar Sani’s food with poison – perhaps because she regretted the marriage in April.<\/p>\n

She is also accused of the murder of three other people, who are said to have died suddenly after eating the same meal prepared for a post-wedding celebration in the village of Unguwar Yansoro.<\/p>\n

But the trial has angered activists who claim a girl who married a man more than 20 years her senior should be treated as a victim.<\/p>\n

The case was opened yesterday with testimony from a seven-year-old child who says she was given money and sent to buy the poison on the same day Sani died.<\/p>\n

Prosecutor Lamido Abba Soron-Dinki’s first witness was a girl identified as Hamziyya, who was living in the same house as Tasi’u and her husband at the time.<\/p>\n

Hamziyya was identified as the sister of Sani’s ‘co-wife’, referring to a woman the deceased farmer had married previously in a region where polygamy is widespread.<\/p>\n

She testified that Tasi’u gave her 80 naira ($0.45, 0.36 euros) to buy rat poison from a local shop on April 5.<\/p>\n

‘She said rats were disturbing her in her room,’ Hamziyya told the court.<\/p>\n

Shopkeeper Abuwa Yusuf from the town of Unguwar Yansoro supported the story and confirmed selling the poison to the girl.<\/p>\n

And neighbour Abdulrahim Ibrahim told the court that he was also offered the food allegedly prepared by Tasi’u – and saw Sani looking ‘visibly ill’ after eating.<\/p>\n

He said: ‘When he brought the food I noticed some sandy-like particles, black in colour.<\/p>\n

He ate four of the small balls made of bean paste but ‘was not comfortable with the taste’, adding: ‘It was only Umar (Sani) who continued eating.’<\/p>\n

He added that he took Sani home and learnt that three others who ate the food had died suddenly.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors allege that Tasiu’s poison food killed four people and have joined all the reported deaths into one murder charge.<\/p>\n

Judge Mohammed Yahaya, sitting at the Gezawa High Court, has entered a plea of not guilty for Tasi’u, who refused to respond at a previous hearing on October 30 when the charges were put to her.<\/p>\n

The judge has rejected defence applications for the case to be transferred to a juvenile court.<\/p>\n

The last time Nigeria sentenced a juvenile to death was in 1997, according to Human Rights Watch.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Source: Daily Mail<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A 14-year-old Nigerian child bride is facing the death penalty for allegedly murdering her 35-year-old husband with rat poison. Prosecutors allege that Wasila Tasi’u, who comes from a poor, rural family in the north of the country, laced her husband Umar Sani’s food with poison – perhaps because she regretted the marriage in April. She […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":12014,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[14],"class_list":["post-69808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-papa-owusu-ankomah"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=69808"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69808\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=69808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=69808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=69808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}