NEW DELHI : The mother of Kerala nurse Nimisha Priya, who is on death row in connection with the murder of a Yemen citizen, approached the Delhi High Court seeking permission to travel to Yemen in order to negotiate with the victim’s family to mitigate the sentence by paying blood money.
Justice Subramonium Prasad has granted two weeks’ time to the Central government to file a status report in the plea moved by petitioner Premakumari for allowing her to go to Yemen, where Indian citizens are prohibited to travel to by the Centre.
The only possibility of any reprieve for Nimisha is if the family of the victim Talal Abdo Mahdi pardons her for blood money, compensation paid by an offender or his kin to the family of the victim, in accordance with the Sharia law and diplomatic intervention.
Earlier, the petitioner had approached the Delhi 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 had requested the Ministry of External Affairs to explore and pursue the remedy of an appeal against the order of conviction.
The high court also directed the Consular to take appropriate measures to facilitate the travel of the petitioner as well as to provide interpreters if required.
Advocate Pavan Narang appeared for the Centre while Advocate Subhash Chandran represented Premakumari before the Delhi High Court. The matter will be heard further on November 16.
On March 7, last year a court in Yemen had dismissed the appeal of Nimisha Priya in the murder case of Yemen 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 before 2016, when travel to and from the country was banned by the Centre 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 Yemen national Talal Mahdi, she set up a clinic. However, differences soon cropped up between Nimisha and Mahdi and she had alleged abuse, torture and taking away her passport against him, which made her trip back to her native state impossible.
Mahdi also misrepresented himself as her husband to the Yemen authorities, due to which she couldn’t get any aid from them, Nimisha said in her statement.
As per reports, on July 25, 2017, she injected Talal with sedatives with the aim of sedating him and taking her passport back and fleeing. But things went awry and he collapsed a while after she administered the sedative.
Four days later, the crime surfaced and both were arrested while Nimisha was sentenced to death, the other person was sentenced to death.
ON DEATH ROW FOR MURDER OF YEMEN CITIZEN
As per reports, on July 25, 2017, she injected Talal with sedatives with the aim of sedating him and taking her passport back and fleeing. But things went awry and he collapsed a while after she administered the sedative. Realising that Mahdi has 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.