Nigerian housewife sentenced to death

An Effunrun High Court, Uvwie council area of Delta State, on Monday sentenced a 28-year old housewife, Mrs. Mary Attah, to death by hanging, for killing her husband over four years ago.

The convict, according to the prosecution, stabbed her husband, the late Pastor Darlington Attah, with a kitchen knife and later set him ablaze on July 6, 2012, for allegedly receiving a call from an unknown lover.


Presiding judge, Justice E.I. Oritsejafor, sentenced the woman to death sentence after finding her guilty on a one-count charge brought against her by the state government.

“I must also add that the evidence before this court do not and cannot support the plea of self defence in favour of the accused person. I agree with the learned Assistant Director for the Prosecution that there is just no possible defence to avail the accused person when she stabbed her deceased husband in the neck with a knife and thereafter doused him with fuel before she struck the match on him was to kill the deceased or do him grievous bodily harm. The law is trite that a man intends the natural consequences of his act.

“From the evidence before this court and in particular the extra-judicial statement of the accused person, Exhibit A and the evidence of PW1 and PW2, which corroborated and was consistent with the facts contained in the said extra-judicial statement Exhibit A, I hold that the prosecution proved beyond reasonable doubt that the accused person murdered her deceased husband on or about the 6th day of July, 2012, and I find the accused person guilty of the murder of Darlington Attah as charged. Accused person is accordingly, hereby convicted of the offence of murder.

“The sentence of this court upon you, Mary Attah, is death by hanging by the neck till you be dead and may the Lord have mercy on your soul,” the judge declared.