New Delhi:
Yemen President Rashad al-Alimi has approved the death sentence for Indian nurse Nimisha Priya, who has been serving a prison sentence since 2017 for the murder of a Yemeni national. The sentence can be executed in a month’s time, according to media reports.
Reacting to the development, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) on Monday said, India is aware of the sentencing of Nimisha Priya in Yemen.
“We understand that the family of Priya is exploring relevant options. The government is extending all possible help in the matter,” MEA Spokesperson, Randhir Jaiswal, said in a statement.
The Yemeni President’s decision came as a shock to the family back home that has been making efforts to save the 36-year-old from death row. Her mother Prema Kumari, 57, reached Sana’a, Yemen’s capital, earlier this year and has since been reportedly staying there to secure a waiver of the death penalty and negotiate the blood money with the victim’s family.
Nimisha Priya Case
Nimisha Priya was found guilty of killing Talal Abdo Mahdi, a Yemeni national, in 2017. A year later, she was sentenced to death by a trial court in Yemen. Since then, her family has been fighting for her release. They approached the Yemini Supreme Court against the trial court’s order, but their appeal was rejected in 2023. Now, with the country’s President also rejecting Priya’s appeal, her release depended on securing forgiveness from the victim’s family and their tribal leaders.
Her mother, Prema Kumari has been trying to negotiate the blood money with the victim’s family, but talks with the victim’s family had come to an abrupt halt in September after Abdullah Ameer, the lawyer appointed by the Indian Embassy, demanded a pre-negotiation fee of $20,000 (approximately Rs16.6 lakh), according to a report by Manorama online.
MEA has already provided $19,871 to Ameer in July, but he insisted on a total fee of $40,000, payable in two instalments before he would resume talks.
The Save Nimisha Priya International Action Council succeeded in raising the first instalment of Ameer’s fee through crowdfunding. However, later they reportedly faced challenges in ensuring transparency to donors about how the funds were being used.
About Nimisha Priya
Nimisha Priya, a native of Palakkad, is a trained nurse who worked in private hospitals in Yemen for a few years. Her husband and minor daughter returned to India in 2014 because of financial reasons. The same year, Yemen was gripped by civil war, and they could not go back, as the country stopped issuing new visas.
Later in 2015, Priya sought Mahdi’s support to set up her clinic in Sana’a, as under Yemen’s law, only nationals are allowed to set up clinics and business firms.
Per her appeal plea in Yemani Supreme Court, in 2015, Mahdi accompanied Priya to Kerala when she came for a month-long holiday. During the visit, he stole her wedding photograph, which he later manipulated to claim that he was married to her.
Upon their return, when Priya started the clinic, Mahadi started cornering all the revenue. He also manipulated the ownership documents of the clinic. When Nimisha Priya questioned him about the embezzlement, he became hostile towards her.
He also began to take money out of her monthly earnings after telling everyone that Priya was his wife and even morphed their pictures to show they were married. In her plea, Priya alleged that soon the harassment turned into physical torture and Mahdi also seized her passport.
According to her plea, Priya even approached the police in Sanaa regarding the matter, but instead of taking action against Mahdi, the police arrested her and put her in jail for six days.
In July 2017, Priya approached the warden of a jail near her clinic, where Mahdi was previously jailed under various charges.
The warden suggested that she should try to sedate him, and then convince him to give her passport. However, sedation did not affect Mahdi, who was a substance abuser. She tried sedating him again, using a stronger sedative to retrieve her passport but he died within a few minutes due to a drug overdose.
