New Delhi: Indian nurse Nimisha Priya, who has been incarcerated since 2017 for the murder of a Yemeni person, has been given the death penalty by Yemeni President Rashad al-Alimi. According to media reports, the sentence can be carried out within a month.

India is aware of Nimisha Priya’s sentence in Yemen, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said Monday in response to the news.

“We are aware that Priya’s family is looking into pertinent options. In a statement, MEA Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal stated, “The government is offering all assistance possible in the matter.”

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The family back home, who had been working to free the 36-year-old off death row, was taken aback by the Yemeni president’s decision. According to reports, her mother Prema Kumari, 57, has been in Sana’a, Yemen’s capital, since earlier this year in an attempt to negotiate the blood money with the victim’s family and obtain a waiver of the death penalty.

The Case of Nimisha Priya

In 2017, Nimisha Priya was convicted of the murder of Yemeni national Talal Abdo Mahdi. A Yemeni trial court sentenced her to death a year later. Her family has been battling for her release ever since. In 2023, they appealed the trial court’s ruling to the Yemini Supreme Court, but their case was denied. Now that Priya’s appeal had been denied by the nation’s president, her release hinged on getting the victim’s family and tribal leaders to pardon her.

According to a report by Manorama online, her mother, Prema Kumari, has been attempting to negotiate the blood money with the victim’s family. However, in September, negotiations with the victim’s family abruptly stopped when Abdullah Ameer, the lawyer assigned by the Indian Embassy, demanded a pre-negotiation fee of $20,000 (roughly Rs16.6 lakh).

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Ameer requested a total price of $40,000, payable in two installments, before he would resume negotiations, despite MEA having previously given him $19,871 in July.

Through crowdsourcing, the Save Nimisha Priya International Action Council was able to raise the first installment of Ameer’s fee. Later on, though, they apparently had trouble keeping donors informed about the usage of the money.

Concerning Nimisha Priya

Born in Palakkad, Nimisha Priya is a qualified nurse who spent a few years working in Yemen’s private hospitals. Due to financial difficulties, her husband and young daughter moved back to India in 2014. Yemen was engulfed in civil war that year, and because the nation ceased granting new visas, they were unable to return.

Since only Yemeni nationals are permitted to open clinics and business establishments, Priya later asked Mahdi for help in 2015 in order to open her clinic in Sana’a.

before 2015, Mahdi accompanied Priya to Kerala for a month-long vacation, as per her appeal request before the Yamani Supreme Court. He took her wedding photo during the visit and then altered it to make it appear as though he was her spouse.

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When they returned and Priya opened the clinic, Mahadi began to keep all of the profits. He also falsified the clinic’s ownership records. He turned on Nimisha Priya after she questioned him about the embezzlement.

He also started deducting money from her monthly paycheck after claiming Priya was his wife and even altering their photos to prove it. The harassment quickly escalated into physical torture, according to Priya’s petition, and Mahdi also confiscated her passport.

She claims that Priya even spoke with the Sanaa police about the situation, but rather than confronting Mahdi, the police detained her and placed her in a six-day detention.

Priya went to the warden of a jail close to her clinic in July 2017 after Mahdi had been imprisoned there on a number of crimes.

In order to persuade him to relinquish her passport, the warden advised her to attempt to sedate him. However, Mahdi, a substance addict, was unaffected by sedation. In an attempt to get her passport back, she tried sedating him once again with a stronger sedative, but he overdosed and died a few minutes later.