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Soon after the President of Yemen approved Kerala nurse Nimisha Priya's death sentence, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) on Tuesday said all possible help is being extended to her.
What Is The Case?
Nimisha Priya, a 36-year-old nurse from Kollengode in Kerala's Palakkad district, had moved to Yemen in 2008 to support her parents. After working in several hospitals, she eventually opened her own clinic. She came in contact with Talal Abdo Mahdi in 2014 to open her own establishment, as local law mandates partnering with a local to start a business in Yemen.
After troubles arose between the duo, Nimisha filed a police complaint against Mahdi due to which he was arrested in 2016. But after his release, he continued threatening her.
In 2017, a dispute arose between her and her Yemeni business partner Mahdi, after she opposed his alleged attempts to misappropriate funds. Nimisha's family claimed that she allegedly injected Mahdi with sedatives to retrieve her confiscated passport. However, an overdose led to his death. She was arrested while attempting to flee the country and was convicted of murder in 2018.
In 2020, a trial court in Sanaa sentenced her to death, and Yemen's Supreme Judicial Council upheld the verdict in November 2023, though it left open the option of blood money, which is the compensation to be decided by the victim's family. They approached the Yemini Supreme Court against the trial court's order, but their appeal was rejected in 2023.
Why Was Nimisha Sentenced To Death?
Yemeni law imposes a death penalty for a wide range of offenses, including "violating the independence, unity or territorial integrity of the Republic," undertaking "an act, with the aim of weakening the armed forces," murder, drug trafficking, adultery, consensual same-sex sexual activity between adults, turning back from or denouncing Islam, and facilitating prostitution.
What Followed?
Nimisha's mother, who worked as a house help for a family in Kochi, has sold her property to fight the case, said lawyer Subhash Chandran, who is part of the forum comprising politicians, businessmen, activists, and expatriates seeking justice for Nimisha.
In relentless efforts to secure a waiver of Nimisha's death penalty, her mother Prema Kumari travelled to Yemen's capital Sanaa earlier this year to negotiate the payment of diya (blood money) to the victim's family with the assistance of the Save Nimisha Priya International Action Council, an organisation of NRI social workers based in Yemen.
Talks to negotiate the blood money 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 Rs 16.6 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.