Nurse on death row in Yemen: All eyes on Centre's mediation

New Delhi: As the Centre's mediation being the last resort for Kerala nurse Nimisha Priya, who was awarded death sentence by a Yemeni Court, in connection with the murder of a local citizen five years ago, legality to save her from the foreign land that follows a different set of laws is challenging.

On March 7, a Yemen court had dismissed the appeal of Nimisha Priya in the murder case of Yemeni citizen Talal Abdo Mahdi, in which she, along with another person, is the prime accused.

Advocate Subhash Chandran K.R. representing 'Save Nimisha Forum', a collective working for Nimisha's release, told IANS that a copy of the judgment is yet to be received and the limitation for appeal before the Supreme Judicial Council is 40 days only. If the appeal before the Supreme Judicial Council is dismissed, execution may take place any time as per the Yemeni law.

The only possibility of any reprieve for Nimisha is if the family of Talal 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, he says.

On March 14, the Delhi High Court had sought the Central government's stand on the plea by the 'Save Nimisha Forum', seeking direction to the Centre to facilitate negotiations with the family of the victim on behalf of the nurse to save her life by paying the 'blood money'.

Nimisha, a nurse from Kerala, had been working in Yemen when travel to and from the country was banned in 2016 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 Yemeni national Talal Mahdi, she set up a clinic.

Soon, differences cropped up between her and Mahdi and she had alleged abuse, torture by him and taking away her passport, making her trip back to her home state impossible. Mahdi also misrepresented himself as her husband to the Yemeni authorities, due to which she couldn't get any aid from them, as per her statement. 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.