NEW DELHI: The fate of Nimisha Priya, a nurse from Kerala on death row in Yemen, remains uncertain as efforts to contact the family of the Yemeni national she is accused of murdering, in order to offer blood money, have yet to succeed.
With Yemen's President Rashad al-Alimi approving the death sentence for the 37-year-old, the only hope for her family is securing a pardon from the family of Talal Abdo Mehdi, the Yemeni citizen she has been convicted of murdering.
“We have been reaching out to some tribal leaders and other significant local people for getting through to the family. So far we spent around 40,000 USD in two installments through a lawyer there. But we are unable to get through to the family,” Subhash Chandran, Nimisha’s lawyer, told The New Indian Express.
The lack of a full-fledged Indian diplomatic mission or active diaspora organisation in the strife-torn Yemen has added to the problems in making all-out efforts to secure her release, the lawyer said. Nimisha has been lodged in a jail in Sana’a, in the capital of Yemen, since 2017 on charges of murdering a Yemeni national.
External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal, in a weekly press briefing, said New Delhi is extending all possible help. “We are closely following the developments around the sentencing of Nimisha Priya. The government is extending all possible help in the matter,” he said.
Meanwhile, Iran has offered to help secure the release of Nimisha Priya “on humanitarian grounds". Iran has a strong relationship with the Houthis, the group that controls most of Yemen.
Nimisha Priya went to Yemen in 2008 for work along with her husband and daughter, both of whom returned to India in 2014 due to a financial crisis. In 2015, she started a clinic there with the help of Talal Abdo Mahdi, her husband’s friend, as a Yemen citizen’s assistance is mandatory to operate a business in Yemen.
In 2017, Nimisha Priya allegedly injected Talal Abdo Mahdi with a sedative to get her passport, which he had taken from her, in addition to allegedly subjecting her to physical torture and extortion.
After being injected, Talal Abdo Mahdi collapsed and died. Nimisha Priya then disposed of his body in a water tank with the assistance of a colleague. She was arrested in August 2017, and in 2020, a trial court in Sanaa sentenced her to death.