THE Kano State Judiciary says copies of the Sharia Court judgement that sentenced Yahaya Shariff Aminu, the Kano-based singer to death over blasphemy has been submitted to Femi Falana, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) and human rights lawyer.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the certified copies of the judgement were submitted to Falana on Wednesday.
Babajibo Ibrahim, the spokesperson of the Kano Judiciary disclosed that the human rights Lawyer had requested for the copies of the judgement on Tuesday.
According to Ibrahim, Falana requested for the copies of the judgement to enable him to appeal the judgement.
Following the request, Ibrahim said the copies of the judgement were made available to his representative on Wednesday in Kano.
“The judiciary received a request from Mr Femi Falana’s representative on Tuesday and certified copies of the judgment were made available to him on Wednesday,’’ Ibrahim said.
The Nigeria Bar Association (NBA) had also offered free legal representation for Shariff according to John Aikpokpo-Martins, first Vice President of the association during a fact-finding mission to Kano.
The Amnesty International, an international Civil Society Organisation had lamented that the Upper Shariah Court in Kano that sentenced Shariff to death has refused to provide lawyers with a copy of the judgement.
“In an attempt to deny Yahaya Shariff Aminu his right to appeal, the Upper Shari’ah Court in Kano has so far not provided lawyers with a copy of the judgement. This is a gross violation of his rights,” Amnesty International said.
“There are seven days left for Yahaya Sharif Aminu to appeal the court judgement of his death sentence and court officials are allegedly denying him access to his lawyers. Prisoners have the right to legal representation.”
The ICIR had reported that Shariff was sentenced to death by the Upper Shariah Court in Kano State for blasphemy over a song he shared on WhatsApp platform earlier in March 2020.
The Shariah court ruled that the song is blasphemous to Prophet Muhammed thereby sentencing him to death with 30days ultimatum for appeal and approval by the governor of the state, Abdullahi Ganduje.
Lukman Abolade is an Investigative reporter with The ICIR. Reach out to him via [email protected], on twitter @AboladeLAA and FB @Correction94