Mother of jailed Indian nurse welcomes Yemeni order to postpone execution

Nimisha Priya receives 11th-hour reprieve as family push for pardon from victim’s family

Nimisha Priya was convicted of murdering her Yemeni business partner in 2017

The execution of an Indian nurse convicted of murdering a Yemeni citizen has been postponed, according to her family and a social worker involved in her defence.

Nimisha Priya was scheduled to be executed in Sanaa on Wednesday. But a petition seeking a stay, filed last week by her mother Prema Kumari and Indian social worker Samuel Jerome Baskaran, has been accepted.

Ms Kumari and Mr Baskaran are in Yemen to support negotiations to save the life of Ms Priya, 34, from Kerala in southern India.

“I just hope God will save her and get her out of this. That’s all I can hope for,” Ms Kumari told The National from the Yemeni capital. “She will be happy to know of this postponement.”

After visiting her daughter in prison last month, Ms Kumari said "in front of me, she showed a brave front but she is very tense".

Mr Baskaran told The National he submitted a petition at the public prosecution office in Sanaa on Saturday, along with Ms Kumari, appealing for the execution to be postponed. They received news a day later that the request had been accepted and were given approval to make the order public today.

Mr Baskaran has earlier met the father and brothers of the victim, Talal Mahdi, to plead for forgiveness and make an offer of $1 million in diya, or blood money, as compensation for his death.

“A pardon is only possible from the family, so I had sought forgiveness from them,” he said. “The family has not consented to our offer. So we have to find a way forward, that is our only priority now. We are still hopeful.”

The order said the execution would be postponed “until further notice". Mr Baskaran said the Indian government had also sent a request to stay the sentence.

Final negotiations

India does not have an embassy in Yemen after it cut diplomatic ties following the outbreak of civil war in 2014, but New Delhi has provided legal representation and helped with the transfer of diya to lawyers in Sanaa.

Deepa Joseph, a lawyer in India and vice chairwoman of the Save Nimisha Priya International Action Council, expressed relief over the order. “We needed time and we knocked on every door,” she said. “We are relieved about the stay as it gives more time to talk to the family of the victim.”

Mediation by an Indian Muslim religious leader has also helped in the case. An intervention by Kanthapuram AP Aboobacker Musliyar, a prominent Sunni leader also known as the Grand Mufti of India, set up a line of communication with Mr Mahdi's family.

“He has spoken to religious scholars in Yemen,” said Chandy Oommen, a Kerala state legislator. “His connections with spiritual leaders there will play a crucial role in reaching the family to ask them for forgiveness for Nimisha. There is an effort from all sides to get a reprieve.”

Case against the nurse

The Indian nurse faces the death sentence over the murder of Mr Mahdi, who was her business partner, after police found his dismembered body in a water tank in 2017.

She has been in jail in Sanaa for the past eight years and her family's hopes hinge on Mr Mahdi’s relatives granting a pardon.

Under Sharia, the only way to halt an execution is an unconditional pardon by the victim’s family or an acceptance of blood money. That is usually paid to the heirs of the deceased by the party found responsible for causing the death.

Supporters of Ms Priya have been working for several years to gather funds and push for her execution to be abandoned. They raised $40,000 through crowdfunding and the money was sent in two instalments to lawyers in Yemen hired by the Indian government for Ms Priya’s defence.

The diya increased to $1 million this month after business leaders, prominent industrialists and the community in Kerala and overseas pitched in.

Ms Priya was 19 when she went to Yemen to work as a nurse in 2008, aiming to change her family's fortunes. Ms Priya worked as a nurse in a Sanaa government hospital before opening a clinic with Mr Mahdi.

During the trial in Yemen, her lawyer alleged she was physically and mentally abused by Mr Mahdi, who confiscated her passport, leaving her unable to travel to India to see her mother, husband and young daughter.

Her lawyer argued that she injected Mr Mahdi with sedatives so she could retrieve her passport, but this led to his death from an accidental overdose.

A court in Sanaa sentenced her death in 2020. An appeal from her family was rejected in 2023 by Yemen’s Supreme Judicial Council and her execution was approved in January this year.