NIGERIAN CHILD BRIDE: PROSECUTORS DROP CHARGE

Prosecutors have withdrawn murder charges against Wasilat Tasi'u, a 15-year-old girl-bride who was accused of using rat poison to kill her35-year-old husband, Umar Sani, and four of his friends.

The prosecutors have been seeking death penalty for the offence but the court had been under serious pressure from human rights groups and the international community to drop the case since she had been married against her will at age 14.

Lamido Abba Soron-Dinki, a prosecutor in the suit against the teenager, asked the High Court in Gezawa, Kano state, to “terminate the case of culpable homicide against Wasila Tasi’u. With a heavy heart, I apply that the accused be discharged,” he said.