A packed Nigerian court heard testimony on Monday that a 14-year-old girl admitted to killing her 35-year-old husband with rat poison, and signed a police confession with a thumbprint because she cannot write.

Because she did not understand English, homicide investigator Abdullahi Adamu translated her statement from the Hausa language dominant in the region and gave her the document to sign.

She could not write her name, so “she had to use a thumbprint,” he told the court during his testimony on the last day of the prosecution’s case. The state’s lawyers, who are seeking the death penalty, also called to the stand Tasi’u’s “co-wife”, a term referring to the woman — identified as Ramatu — whom the deceased farmer had married previously in a region where polygamy is widespread.

Ramatu said she got along well with Tasi’u and that the two had prepared the food together on April 5, the day Sani died. She testified that because it was Tasi’u’s turn to share a bed with Sani, Tasi’u was also entitled to serve him his meal.

“After putting the food in the dish I didn’t see anybody put anything in it,” Ramatu said. She told the court she saw her husband sometime later being helped back to the house by a neighbour, unable to walk and foaming at the mouth.

The case has sparked outrage among human rights activists who say Nigeria should be treating Tasi’u as a victim, noting the possibility that she was raped by the man she married.

Credit: Yahoo News