A Minna High court number Seven has sentenced 3 siblings of the same parents to death by electrocution.
The three siblings Amina Aliyu, Aishat Mohammed and Zainab Aliyu, residents of the Barkin Saleh area of Minna, were arraigned in 2021 by the office of the Attorney General in the State Ministry of Justice for jointly killing a married woman.
Justice Balkisu Yusuf convicted the accused persons after three years of a legal tussle at the Minna High Court after they were found guilty of a two-count charge of joint act and culpable homicide.
They were earlier arraigned before a Minna Chief Magistrate court Number One for a preliminary trial pending legal advice from the office of the Director of Public Prosecution in the office of the Attorney General because one of the prime suspects was underaged as at then.
Amina Aliyu was said to have, on March 23, 2021, killed her rival, Hafsat Aliyu, after hitting her with a pestle and setting her corpse on fire in the kitchen.
During the full trial at the High Court, four persons testified as witnesses, including the husband, Muhammed Sani, who gave vivid testimonies on how his late wife was killed by her own rival Amina, after which she set her ablaze.
The defense counsel to the convicts, Peter Omale while pleading for leniency on behalf of the convicts, drew the attention of the Judge to the age of the third convict, Zainab Aliyu, who was a teenager at the time the offence was committed.
Analysing the judgement, the Presiding Judge, Justice Balkisu Yusuf, held that the two-count charge of joint act and culpable homicide punishable under sections 97 and 221 of the penal were established against the three convicts as proved by the prosecutor.
Considering the plea of the defence counsel, Justice Yusuf, noted that as of 2021, when the offence was committed, the administration of the Criminal Justice Act (ACJA) was already domesticated which excluded somebody below the age of eighteen to be convicted for capital-related offence, however, the third convict Zainab was Convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment, While Amina and Aishat aee are sentenced to death by electrocution.
(Editor : Ena Agbanoma)
