A Nigerian court has sentenced a Chinese businessman to death after being found guilty of murdering his girlfriend Ummu Kulthum Sani in 2022.
Frank Geng Quarong was discovered in her
room after having stabbed her several times there.
The
killing of the 22-year-old university student shocked Nigerians and the case
was closely followed.
Death
sentences are rarely carried out in Nigeria. Quarong has 90 days to appeal
against the verdict.
Speaking on behalf of
the family, the victim's brother, Sadiq Sani, described the sentence of death
by hanging handed down by the court in Kano as justice. He said that whoever
killed anyone deserved to be killed too.
"We
thank God for showing us this day... I pray that my sister's soul continues to
rest in peace," he told the BBC.
Her
family remembers the young agriculture undergraduate as kind and jovial.
Quarong,
49, and Ms Sani had been in a relationship since 2020 after having met in a
shopping mall, according to Mr Sani.
He
was in the country working for a Nigerian textile firm.
Talking
shortly after the killing in September 2022, family friend Ahmad Abdullahi
described what had happened.
He
remembered coming to the family home and seeing that "a lot of people had
gathered outside the house".
"That
was when we knew something bad had happened. Geng was her boyfriend and had
good relations with her family before that day.
"Before
the incident, they were having issues as she was no longer interested and he
didn't want to let go."
According
to neighbors, on the night of the killing, Quarong was heard knocking heavily
on the gate to the Sani family home.
When
Ms Sani's mother opened the gate he pushed her aside and rushed straight to Ms
Sani's room, locking it from the inside.
Her
shouts and cries attracted the family and before anyone could break down the
door to help she had been stabbed several times.
She
died later in hospital.
Nigeria
currently has more than 3,400 people on death row and the last execution was
carried out in 2012.
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