The father of a 14-year-old Nigerian child bride accused of murdering her husband is trying to get authorities to spare his daughter's life from the death penalty, Fox News reported on Thursday.
The 35-year-old husband, Umar Sani, was killed by the girl's father, Wasilat Tasi'u, the court said. Sani died after ingesting rat poison.
Tasi'u kileed the man two weeks after the wedding in April, witnesses told a court 50 miles outside of Nigeria's second largest city of Kano. Along with Sani, three others allegedly died from eating the tainted food.
Lamido Soron-Dinki is the senior state council from the Kano State Ministry of Justice, and he is seeking the death penalty for the young woman.
Activist are angered by the decision, and say that a girl married to such an older man should be treated as a victim instead of a criminal, according to the Daily Mail.
A severn-year-old girl testified in court on Wedneday that she was sent to purchase the poison on the same day that Sani and the others died. The girl was named Hamziyya, who was living with Tasi'u's daughter and her husband.
Hamziyya is Sani's "co-wife's" sister, meaning a woman that the dead older man had married in the past in a region where polygamy is common.
Tasi'u gave the girl $0.45 worth of Naira, Nigerian money, to go to a store and pick up the rat poison.
"She said rats were disturbing her in her room," Hamziyya said in court.
Abuwa Yusuf, the shop manager, testified that the story the girl was telling was true and a neighbor said he was also offered the same dish, but noticed Sani looking very ill. He took Sani home and heard three others had suddenly died after the meal.
Prosecutors have lumped all of the deaths together in one charge, deciding that they were related.
The Human Rights Watch said that the last time Nigeria executed a juvenile was in 1997.
