Indian nurse's family launch blood money fundraiser in bid to avoid death penalty

In 2018, Nimisha Priya was sentenced to death for murder in Yemen

Nimisha Priya, 33, a trained nurse from Palakkad in Kerala state, was convicted for murdering and dismembering her business partner Talal Abdu Mahadi in 2017.

The family of an Indian nurse is planning to launch a fundraising effort to raise a blood money payment in the hope of saving her life after a court in Yemen upheld her death sentence for murdering her Yemeni business partner.

Nimisha Priya, 33, a nurse from Palakkad in Kerala state was convicted of murdering and dismembering her business partner, Talal Abdu Mahadi, in 2017.

Priya was sentenced to death by a trial court in the capital Sanaa in 2018 and is still in prison.

She filed an appeal before Yemen’s high court to cancel her death sentence but the court rejected her plea on Monday.

Her lawyers are now hoping to move the country’s Supreme Court with a fresh plea amid “small hopes” of receiving a reprieve.

“It is unlikely that the top court will reverse the high court judgment. It has never reversed the appellate court’s decision in its history but we have small hopes,” Deepa Joseph, a Delhi-based advocate and vice president of “Save Nimisha”, a global action committee, told The National.

On July 25, 2017, Priya injected Mr Mahadi with sedatives to recover her passport following a financial dispute.

Priya met Mahadi in 2011 and they set up a clinic in Sanaa three years later after forging marriage documents. Under Yemeni law, only natives are allowed to set up clinics and medical firms.

Her husband Tomi Thomas and daughter had returned to India but she could not leave due to the outbreak of civil war in 2014, her lawyer said.

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  Security personnel inspect the site of a car bomb explosion outside Aden International Airport, in Aden, southern Yemen. Reuters

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  At least five civilians – including a child – were killed in the blast, with 40 injured, officials said. Some unconfirmed reports putting the death toll at 12. AFP

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  The device went off in a car parked at an intersection near the main gate of Aden International Airport. AFP

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  The bomb also destroyed nearby vehicles. AFP

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  A crowd gathers at the scene of the explosion outside Aden International airport. Reuters

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  Yemen has been convulsed by civil war since 2014, when Iran-backed Houthi rebels displaced the internationally recognised government in parts of the country. Reuters

Ms Joseph said the couple had taken out a loan worth 4 million rupees ($52,000) to set up a business in the country.

A few months into the business, she claimed Mahadi was embezzling money, and alleged that he threatened her and held her at gunpoint several times. She said her ornaments were also stolen, forcing her to complain to the police.

Mahadi was arrested briefly but continued to harass her before taking away her passport so that she could not leave Yemen, her lawyer said.

“She had changed 20 phones but every time she bought a new one, Mahadi broke it, leaving her unable to speak to her family in India,” Ms Joseph said.

Priya claimed that she was unable to cope and had planned to get his thumb impression on a document that could have ended the business deal and eventually secured her freedom.

Yemeni women shop in the old city market of the Houthi rebel-held capital Sanaa. AFP

However, a court found the 33-year-old medic conspired with a Yemeni nurse named Hanan to inject Mahadi with sedatives, but an overdose killed him.

Unable to find a place to hide the body, the women chopped it into pieces, put the body parts in polythene bags and then dumped them in a water tank at the clinic before fleeing the capital.

When locals complained of a smell coming from the water tank, police found the body parts, leading to Priya’s arrest.

A trial court sentenced her to death while co-accused Hanan was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Priya filed mercy pleas in 2020 and 2021 for the commutation of her sentence but following protests by Mahadi's family the court rejected the appeals.

Ms Joseph said if the apex court also rejects her appeal then the lawyers will try to persuade Mahadi’s family to accept blood money to the tune of 40 million rupees ($519,000).

“We do not know how much money they would want but we earlier heard they asked for 40 million rupees. We have to arrange the huge sum within a month. We will launch a crowdfund,” Ms Joseph said.

“Her family is very poor. Her mother works as domestic help and her husband drives an autorickshaw. He is desperate and shattered. After the verdict, I called and he was hopeless. Her mother is heart-broken,” she said.