Delhi HC seeks Centre's response on Kerala woman's plea to travel to Yemen to save daughter on death row
NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court has sought the Centre's stand on a plea to permit the mother of a woman from Kerala, who is facing the death penalty in Yemen for the murder of a national, to travel to the country to save her daughter from gallows.
Justice Subramonium Prasad has granted two weeks for the Central government to file a status report in the plea moved by Petitioner Premakumari for allowing her to go to a foreign country, where traveling of Indians was banned by the Centre.
The only possibility of any reprieve for Nimisha is if the family of victim Talal Abdo Mahdi pardons her for blood money -- compensation paid by an offender or his kin to the family of the victim -- by the Sharia law and diplomatic intervention.
Earlier also the petitioner had approached the High Court for a direction to the Centre to facilitate diplomatic intervention as well as negotiations with the family of the victim on behalf of Nimisha Priya to save her life.
On March 15, last year, the high court requested the Ministry of External Affairs to explore and pursue the remedy of an appeal against the order of conviction. It was also directed to the Consular to take appropriate measures to facilitate the travel of the petitioner as well as to provide interpreters if so required.
Adv Pavan Narang appeared for the Centre while Adv Subhash Chandran represented Premakumari.
The matter will be heard further on November 16.
On March 7, last year a Yemen court had dismissed the appeal of Nimisha Priya in the murder case of Yemeni citizen Talal Abdo Mahdi, in which she, along with another person, is the prime accused.
Nimisha, a nurse from Kerala, had been working in Yemen when travel to and from the country was banned in 2016 due to the Civil War. Her husband and daughter returned to India in 2014, but she couldn't due to her job.
In 2015, with the help of a Yemeni national Talal Mahdi, she set up a clinic.
Soon, differences cropped up between her and Mahdi and she had alleged abuse, torture by him and taking away her passport, making her trip back to her home state impossible. Mahdi also misrepresented himself as her husband to the Yemeni authorities, due to which she couldn't get any aid from them, as per her statement.
As per reports, on July 25, 2017, she injected Talal with sedatives to sedate him took her passport back and fled.
But things went awry and he collapsed a while after she administered the sedative.
Realising that Mahdi had died, with another person's help, she disposed of his body, which was cut into pieces in a water tank.
Four days later, the crime surfaced and both were arrested Nimisha was sentenced to death, and the other person was sentenced to life.