Nigeria court drops child bride murder case in Kano

Version 0 of 1.

A court in northern Nigeria has dropped charges against a 14-year-old girl accused of using rat poison to kill her husband, aged 35.

The Kano state government asked that the case be dismissed because she was a minor who had been forcibly married.

The girl is to be freed from detention following the ruling, reports the BBC's Habiba Adamu from the capital, Abuja.

When the case was reported in 2014, it threw a spotlight on the issue of child brides and forced marriages in Nigeria.

The girl admitted to killing her husband by concealing rat poison in his food, the police in Kano said at the time.

The girl's father had forced her to marry the 35-year-old man, police said.

The Islamic police in Kano and many other parts of northern Nigeria are trying to stop parents from forcing children into marriages.

The region has a majority Muslim, and a mixture of a secular and lslamic system of government.