Death penalty against child bride to be pursued

Gezawa - 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.
Also read: 14 year-old bride kills husband, 3 others in Kano
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 a Muslim 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 system.