Indian nurse Nimisha Priya is set to be executed in Sanaa on Wednesday over the murder of a Yemeni citizen, even as her family races to secure a last-minute pardon from the victim’s relatives.
Legal and diplomatic options have run out for the nurse, 34, from Kerala state in southern India, with a final hearing in the Supreme Court in New Delhi held on Monday.
A petition filed by the Save Nimisha Priya International Action Council had asked the Indian government to intervene to stop the execution, set for Wednesday in Yemen.
India’s attorney general told the Delhi court the government had done its best and that, diplomatically, there was nothing more authorities could do. India has no diplomatic ties with Yemen, with a travel ban in place since the outbreak of civil war in 2014.
Blood money as final prayer
The Indian nurse faces the death sentence over the murder of Talal Mahdi, also her business partner, after his dismembered body was discovered in a water tank in 2017.
She has been in jail in Sanaa for the past eight years and her family’s hopes are tied to Mr Mahdi’s family accepting diya, or blood money, that would prevent the execution.
“We are hoping and praying some miracle will happen in the next two days,” Deepa Joseph, a lawyer in India and vice-chairwoman of the Save Nimisha Priya International Action Council, told The National.
“The coming moments are crucial, the next days will be critical as the final order of the prosecution is for execution on July 16.”
The group was formed five years ago and works as a legal and humanitarian campaign to mobilise support for Ms Priya.
Diya money is typically paid to the heirs of the deceased by the party found responsible for causing the death. Under Sharia, the only way to stop the execution is a pardon from the victim’s family and acceptance of diya money.
“The blood money is the only remedy now,” said Ms Joseph, who is in contact with Ms Priya. "Her last message to me was: ‘Ma’am, please tell everyone to pray for me, please try to save me.’”
Ms Priya’s supporters hope 11th-hour talks with the victim’s family will come through.
Supporters had raised $40,000 through crowdfunding and the money was sent in two instalments to Yemen to lawyers hired by the Indian government to negotiate over details of the case.
Her family this month offered another $1 million as a final clemency plea to save her life. Funds were donated by business leaders, the community in Kerala and from overseas, including the UAE and other Gulf nations.
Ms Joseph was at the Supreme Court hearing in Delhi on Monday and acknowledged most options had run out.
“The attorney general is right, the Indian government has done everything possible,” she said. "The government appointed an attorney and allowed Nimisha’s mother to travel to Yemen.
“Before this we were in crisis because there is no Indian embassy in Yemen, so sending money was difficult and the government helped facilitate us getting the money to Yemen.”
Prema Kumari, Ms Priya’s mother, was granted permission by the Delhi High Court to travel to Yemen. She has been in Sanaa since last year and has seen her daughter a few times in jail.
Case details
Ms Priya was 19 when she went to Yemen to work as a nurse in 2008.
Her lawyer, during the trial in Yemen, had alleged that Mr Mahdi had abused her physically and mentally, and had confiscated her passport so she was unable to travel to India for years. The lawyer argued that so she could retrieve her passport, she injected Mr Mahdi with sedatives, leading to his death from an accidental overdose.
A court in Sanaa sentenced her to death in 2020. Her family challenged the decision but their appeal was rejected in 2023 by Yemen’s Supreme Judicial Council.
Mahdi Al-Mashat, president of the Yemen’s rebel Houthi Supreme Political Council, approved the execution in January.
Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has written to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to intervene.
Ms Priya comes from a modest background and her mother works as a housemaid in Kerala. She left India to work in a government-run hospital in Sanaa hoping to change her family’s fortunes.
She returned to India to marry Tomi Thomas, an autorickshaw driver, in 2011 and the couple now have a daughter, 13.
The couple lived in Yemen for a while but Mr Thomas later returned to India with their daughter. Ms Priya took a loan and opened a clinic in Yemen with Mr Mahdi, as she was legally required to have a Yemini partner for the business.
In a petition filed in the Delhi High Court, the Save Nimisha Priya International Action Council alleged Mr Mahdi had kept her passport, threatened her with a gun and seized money made by the clinic.
When Mr Mahdi’s body was found by Sanaa police in 2017, Ms Priya was charged with killing him and chopping up his body.
“I’m not saying this is not a crime, I’m not justifying it or saying she is innocent,” Ms Joseph said.
“This is not the time to say she is wrong or he was wrong. But for the last eight years, she has been in jail and facing news of her death each and every day. For any person, that is also a penalty.”
Will the pound fall to parity with the dollar?
The idea of pound parity now seems less far-fetched as the risk grows that Britain may split away from the European Union without a deal.
Rupert Harrison, a fund manager at BlackRock, sees the risk of it falling to trade level with the dollar on a no-deal Brexit. The view echoes Morgan Stanley’s recent forecast that the currency can plunge toward $1 (Dh3.67) on such an outcome. That isn’t the majority view yet – a Bloomberg survey this month estimated the pound will slide to $1.10 should the UK exit the bloc without an agreement.
New Prime Minister Boris Johnson has repeatedly said that Britain will leave the EU on the October 31 deadline with or without an agreement, fuelling concern the nation is headed for a disorderly departure and fanning pessimism toward the pound. Sterling has fallen more than 7 per cent in the past three months, the worst performance among major developed-market currencies.
“The pound is at a much lower level now but I still think a no-deal exit would lead to significant volatility and we could be testing parity on a really bad outcome,” said Mr Harrison, who manages more than $10 billion in assets at BlackRock. “We will see this game of chicken continue through August and that’s likely negative for sterling,” he said about the deadlocked Brexit talks.
The pound fell 0.8 per cent to $1.2033 on Friday, its weakest closing level since the 1980s, after a report on the second quarter showed the UK economy shrank for the first time in six years. The data means it is likely the Bank of England will cut interest rates, according to Mizuho Bank.
The BOE said in November that the currency could fall even below $1 in an analysis on possible worst-case Brexit scenarios. Options-based calculations showed around a 6.4 per cent chance of pound-dollar parity in the next one year, markedly higher than 0.2 per cent in early March when prospects of a no-deal outcome were seemingly off the table.
Bloomberg
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
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Types of policy
Term life insurance: this is the cheapest and most-popular form of life cover. You pay a regular monthly premium for a pre-agreed period, typically anything between five and 25 years, or possibly longer. If you die within that time, the policy will pay a cash lump sum, which is typically tax-free even outside the UAE. If you die after the policy ends, you do not get anything in return. There is no cash-in value at any time. Once you stop paying premiums, cover stops.
Whole-of-life insurance: as its name suggests, this type of life cover is designed to run for the rest of your life. You pay regular monthly premiums and in return, get a guaranteed cash lump sum whenever you die. As a result, premiums are typically much higher than one term life insurance, although they do not usually increase with age. In some cases, you have to keep up premiums for as long as you live, although there may be a cut-off period, say, at age 80 but it can go as high as 95. There are penalties if you don’t last the course and you may get a lot less than you paid in.
Critical illness cover: this pays a cash lump sum if you suffer from a serious illness such as cancer, heart disease or stroke. Some policies cover as many as 50 different illnesses, although cancer triggers by far the most claims. The payout is designed to cover major financial responsibilities such as a mortgage or children’s education fees if you fall ill and are unable to work. It is cost effective to combine it with life insurance, with the policy paying out once if you either die or suffer a serious illness.
Income protection: this pays a replacement income if you fall ill and are unable to continue working. On the best policies, this will continue either until you recover, or reach retirement age. Unlike critical illness cover, policies will typically pay out for stress and musculoskeletal problems such as back trouble.
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
