A 14-year-old girl accused of poisoning the 35-year-old man she was forced to marry was set to go on trial for murder in northern Nigeria on Monday, a case that has thrown the spotlight on the influence of Islamic law in region.
AFP reports that Wasila Tasi’u has also been charged with the murder of three others who allegedly ate the food laced with rat poison that she prepared and served in April this year, a week after her marriage to Umaru Sani.
Police say Tasi’u confessed to poisoning Sani and his guests at the wedding party in the village of Unguwar Yansoro village, about 60 kilometres (40 miles) outside Nigeria’s second city of Kano.
“She did it because she was forced by her parents to marry a man she did not love,” Kano state police spokesman Musa Magaji Majia told AFP.
Her lawyer Hussaina Aliyu rejects claims that her client made a legally valid confession.
She said Tasi’u was questioned by police without a parent or lawyer present and so any comments she may have made are inadmissable in court.
Aliyu, who works with International Federation of Women Lawyers (FIDA), has sought to have the case transferred to a juvenile court, a bid rejected by justice officials in Kano.
“All we are saying is do justice to her. Treat the case as it is. Treat her as a child,” Aliyu said.
The marriage of teenage girls to much older men is rampant in deeply conservative, mainly Muslim northern Nigeria, especially in poorer rural areas.
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