Nimisha Priya’s Fate Hangs In Balance, As Govt Admits It Can’t Do Much

Two days before Nimisha Priya, the Kerala nurse found guilty of committing murder in Yemen, is to be executed, the government admitted that it had all but exhausted every channel for seeking a reprieve. “There’s a point till which the government of India can go. We have reached that,” Attorney General R Venkataramani, representing the Centre, told the Supreme Court (SC) earlier today.

A bench of Justices Vikaram Nath and Sandeep Mehta was hearing a plea by the Save Nimisha Priya International Action Council seeking the court’s intervention to direct the Centre to assist in the negotiations through diplomatic channels. The counsel for the petitioner submitted that Priya’s family and supporters were negotiating a ‘blood money’ deal with the murder victim’s family, so that she can be pardoned under Sharia law. According to reports, however, the victim’s family and the Houthi authorities have so far refused to engage. “They say it’s a question of honour,” R Venkataramani told the SC. “We don’t know if it changes with more money. But as of now, standstill.”

The issue is complicated by the fact that India does not have formal diplomatic relations with the Houthis, the rebel group which controls several parts of Yemen, including the capital Sana’a where Priya was convicted.
Venkataramani informed the court that India had reached out to “an influential sheikh” in Yemen to persuade the authorities there, and although it was informally conveyed, that the exeuction would be stayed, he admitted, the government had little clue if it would work. “We got an informal communication that the execution would be put in abeyance, but we don’t know if it will work out,” Venkataramani said.

Priya was sentenced to death by a trial court in Sana’a in 2020, a decision that was upheld three years later by the Supreme Judicial Council, the Houthi’s top judicial body. She is accused of murdering Talal Abdo Mahdi, a Yemeni national who was her business associate. Having first moved to Yemen in 2008 to work as a nurse, Priya is believed to have gotten into a partnership with Mahdi to start a clinic. Priya’s husband Tomy Thomas initially also lived with her in Yemen, but after returning to Kerala, once civil war broke out in the country, Thomas, along with their daughter, it is said, stayed back in Kerala.

Priya’s family claims that Mahdi took advantage of Priya who was now alone in Yemen, refusing to share income from the clinic with her, and abusing her both physically and sexually. The family also alleges that Mahdi took away her passport. Priya then enlisted the help of a fellow nurse, it is claimed, and tried to sedate Mahdi so she could retrieve her passport, but an accidental overdose led to his death.

Priya’s mother, who travelled to Yemen last year after she got the Delhi high court to have an exemption from the travel ban to the conflict-hit country granted for her, has been stationed there ever since. She has, it is said, managed to meet Priya in prison a few times.

The SC adjourned the matter till July 18, with the direction that it be appraised of the status. But as the clock ticks, and the date of the execution nears, Priya’s chances do not look great.

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