<p>
	The key witness in the case is a 7-year-old girl who is the sister of the man&rsquo;s other wife.</p>
<p>
	A Nigerian court has rejected a motion to have murder charges against a child bride accused of killing her husband dismissed, saying there was enough evidence for the case to proceed.</p>
<p>
	Wasila Tasi&rsquo;u was 14 when she married Umar Sani, 35, in Nigeria&rsquo;s deeply conservative, mainly Muslim north last year, and could face the death penalty if convicted of using rat poison to kill him.</p>
<p>
	&ldquo;I am of the opinion that there is a case against the accused,&rdquo; High Court Judge Mohammed Yahaya said. &ldquo;As such, I overrule the submission of no-case from the defence counsel.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
	Tasi&rsquo;u&#39;s lawyers had argued that the state failed to establish her intent to kill Sani and questioned the reliability of a key prosecution witness.</p>
<p>
	The witness, a seven-year-old girl named Hamziyya who was identified as the sister of Sani&rsquo;s other wife, testified that Tasi&rsquo;u gave her money to buy the poison on April 5 last year, the day Sani died.</p>
<p>
	The defence said that relying on testimony from a minor contravened Nigeria&rsquo;s Evidence Act and that the state&rsquo;s case should therefore be thrown out.</p>
<p>
	The murder trial has highlighted the range of attitudes towards child marriage in Nigeria, especially in the impoverished north.</p>
<p>
	Appropriate age to marry?</p>
<p>
	The families of both the deceased and the accused have rejected claims that she was forced to marry a man more than twice her age, noting that 14 was an appropriate age to marry and that Tasi&rsquo;u chose Sani from a range of suitors.</p>
<p>
	Some locals have called for Tasi&rsquo;u to face stiff punishment to discourage other girls from taking similar action if they become unhappy in their marriage.</p>
<p>
	But rights activists have demanded that Tasi&rsquo;u be rehabilitated as a victim of a forced marriage, which likely included incidents of rape.</p>
<p>
	Laws regarding both sexual and marital consent are complex in northern Nigeria, given the coexistence of both secular and Islamic law, creating contradictions in the justice system.</p>
<p>
	Tasi&rsquo;u has remained largely stoic through her appearances in court so far, crying when charges were first read against her, but otherwise sitting silently, often with her head bowed.</p>
<p>
	Yesterday she stood quietly in the dock, with her head fully covered in a sky-blue hijab.</p>
<p>
	Sani died after eating food that Tasi&rsquo;u allegedly prepared for a meal to celebrate their marriage. Three others who reportedly ate the food also died, but prosecutors have combined the three deaths into a single murder charge.</p>
<p>
	The state has concluded its case and following Tuesday&rsquo;s ruling the defence was instructed to move forward with its own evidence when the trial resumes on April 29.</p>
<p>
	<a href="http://www.thejournal.ie/child-bride-murder-nigeria-2061040-Apr2015/">http://www.thejournal.ie/child-bride-murder-nigeria-2061040-Apr2015/</a></p>
