WOMAN TO DIE BY HANGIND FOR KILLING SON.

A Maiduguri High Court presided
over by Justice Pindar Ngadda on
Friday sentenced a woman,
Rebecca Emmanuel, to die by
hanging for killing her nine-year-
old son, Ishaya Emmanuel.
Emmanuel had taken Ishaya to a
bush in the Hawul area of
Maiduguri, where he gave him a
bottle of poisoned Maltina drink to swallow, making the little boy
became unconscious and to die on
the spot.
The woman, allegedly covered the
body of the boy in the forest with
dry leaves and grasses and thereafter, set him ablaze.
She was arraigned before the court for committing culpable homicide
punishable with death under section 221 of the Criminal Code Law.
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the 34-year-old woman decided
to carry out the crime in a bid to deceive her new husband that she
was a virgin.
Delivering judgement, Ngadda held that based on the accused's
confessional statement and
circumstantial evidence made
available by the prosecution
counsel, he had convinced the court beyond reasonable doubt that the
woman had committed the crime.
He said that although there was no medical report that the accused was
instrumental to the death of her son and no medical report that proved
that she poisoned the little boy, her admission at the police
station that she caused the death
was enough to find her guilty of
the offence.
In view of this, the judge said that
she was satisfied that the
confessional statement of the
accused was true and convicted her as charged.
The defence counsel, Abba Yusuf,
however, pleaded with the court to temper justice with mercy and
pardon the woman as she had four children who needed to be catered for.
The prosecuting counsel, Ahmed
Zubairu, told the court that the
provision in section 211 of the
Penal Code Law was mandatory,
pointing out that the accused
should be convicted and sentenced accordingly.
"I wish I can temper justice with
mercy but I cant. My hands are tied.
Consequently the court is hereby
sentencing you Rebecca Emmanuel to death by hanging," the judge ruled.
She, however, said that relying on
section 294 of the Criminal
Procedure Code Law of Borno State,a recommendation would be
forwarded to the governor on the
judgement to grant the convict
pardon or a lesser term of
punishment.