THIRUVANANTHAPURAM/PALAKKAD: Shattering all efforts to secure the release of Nimisha Priya, Yemen President Rashad al-Alimi on Monday approved the death sentence for the Kerala nurse, who was convicted of murdering a Yemeni citizen. As per reports, the sentence will be executed in a month’s time.
The decision has come as a shocker to the family back home as efforts were ongoing to save the 36-year-old from death row. Nimisha’s mother Prema Kumari, 57, had been striving hard for the past many years to save her daughter.
Earlier this year, Prema Kumari had reached Sana’a, Yemen’s capital, and has been staying there to secure a waiver of the death penalty and negotiate the blood money with victim’s family. She was provided assistance by the Save Nimisha Priya International Action Council comprising NRI social workers based in Yemen.
‘Worked tirelessly to save Nimisha, but our efforts ended in vain’
Negotiations with the victim’s family reached a dead end in September this year after the lawyer engaged by the Indian Embassy demanded more funds, part of which were raised by the Action council.
“We worked tirelessly to save Nimisha Priya’s life, but our efforts ended in vain. We managed to collect 40,000 dollars (around Rs 34,20,000), and were prepared to raise even more to save her. Along with the action council, the chief minister, the leader of opposition, former union minister and various leaders across political lines joined hands in this effort,” said Nenmara MLA K Babu.
He added that he was unable to communicate with Nimisha Priya’s relatives, including her mother, who is currently in Yemen.
“We held on to hope and were ready to do everything possible. However, as we know, despite the involvement of the government and the embassy, decisions related to executions are often influenced by certain ethnic groups,” he told TNIE.
It was to help her daily wage labourer parents that Nimisha Priya, a nurse from Kollengode in Palakkad district, left for Yemen in 2008. She worked in a few hospitals in the country and had planned to start her own clinic. In 2017, she had a fallout with her local partner Talal Abdo Mahdi. Her family said she had opposed his alleged attempts to embezzle funds.
In a bid to reclaim her passport confiscated by the Yemeni national, she allegedly injected him with sedatives. However, an overdose of the sedative resulted in his death.
She was arrested while attempting to flee Yemen and was convicted in 2018. She was sentenced to death by a trial court in Sana’a in 2020. Yemen’s Supreme Judicial Council had dismissed her appeal in November 2023 while keeping the option of paying blood money open.
Nimisha’s family had hoped that they would be able to save her after convincing the victim’s family to accept the blood money.
Tomy Thomas, Nimisha’s husband, had returned from Yemen along with their 11-year-old daughter following the civil war in the country in 2014.