Yemen President Rashad al-Alimi has sanctioned a death sentence for a nurse from Kerala, Nimisha Priya, who has been in jail since 2017 for the murder of a Yemeni national, Talal Abdo Mahdi. The execution will reportedly be done in a month.
Who is Nimisha Priya?
- Nimisha Priya is a nurse from Kerala’s Palakkad district. After completing her nursing training program, she moved to Yemen in 2008 to support her daily-wage labourer parents.
- She worked in several hospitals in Yemen initially and then decided to open her clinic.
- In 2014, Priya came in contact with Talal Abdo Mahdi who promised to help her in starting her clinic. A partnership was required since according to Yemeni law, partnering with a local is mandatory for starting any business. However, the partnership soon ended because of differences between them.
- Priya started her clinic in 2015 without Mahdi, which reportedly angered him. He began threatening Priya and reportedly even took her passport to ensure she did not leave Yemen. Following this, Priya filed a complaint against him that led to his arrest in 2016. He was released sometime later.
- In 2017, while the duo was engaged in a dispute, Priya injected him with sedatives in an attempt to retrieve her passport from his possession. However, he died of an overdose.
- Priya was found guilty of the murder a year later and was sentenced to death.
- Priya’s family has been making efforts to get a waiver of the death penalty. Her mother, Prema Kumari, had approached the Yemini Supreme Court against the death sentence, but their appeal was rejected in 2023.
- They have also been trying to negotiate the payment of diya (blood money) to the victim’s family. But even that came to an abrupt halt in September after Abdullah Ameer, the lawyer appointed by the Indian Embassy, reportedly demanded a pre-negotiation fee of $20,000 (approximately Rs16.6 lakh).
- Priya’s mother reached the Yemeni capital Sanaa earlier this year.
- India, reacting to the Yemeni President’s approval of a death sentence for Priya, said that it is providing “all possible help”. “We understand that the family of Priya is exploring relevant options. The government is extending all possible help in the matter,” Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) Spokesperson, Randhir Jaiswal, said in a statement.
