TheCable

A high court in Gezawa, Kano state, has discharged and acquitted Wasila Tasiu, the 15-year-old girl who used rat poison to kill her 35-year-old husband in April 2014.

Prosecutors had earlier withdrawn murder charges against her.

Audu Bako, Kano state attorney-general, had said the charges were dropped “because the accused is a minor and the victim’s family had forgiven her”.

In his ruling on Tuesday, Mohammed Yahaya ruled that the court had no option than to comply with the application from the office of the attorney general to terminate the case and discharge Wasila.

“I have no alternative than to pronounce according to the law that the application for nolle proseque is hereby granted,”he said.

“Consequent therefore, you Wasila Tasiu is hereby discharged.”

FAmily members of the girl went into wild jubilation. The girl’s case had attracted global attention.

The teenager, who is from an impoverished and deeply conservative Muslim family, was forced to marry Usman Sani, a farmer.

She was arrested and detained after confessing to killing Sani.

During one of the trials at the court last year, Ramatu, Sani’s second wife, narrated how her “co-wife” prepared their husband dinner before she was due to go to bed with him.

“After putting the food in the dish, I didn’t see anybody put anything in it,” Ramatu said, adding that she saw her husband later on “foaming at the mouth and unable to walk”.

Hamziyya, a seven-year-old girl believed to be the teenager’s sister and living in the same home, was allegedly sent to buy rat poison by Wasila, which was confirmed by shopkeeper Abuwa Yusuf.