Who Is Nimisha Priya? Kerala Nurse Sentenced To Death In Yemen In A Murder Case

Nimisha was sentenced to death for killing a Yemeni national, Talal Abdo Mahdi, whom she injected with sedatives in a bid to take back her passport from him.

Nimisha Priya, Kerala nurse who has been given death penlaty in Yemen.

Source : X (@myvakil)

Convicted for killing a Yemeni national Talal Abdo Mahdi, Nimisha Priya, an Indian nurse from Kerala is facing a death sentence on a foreign land with her mother and 'Save Nimisha Forum' trying a separate battle in India. Nimisha was awarded the death penalty in 2018 which she challenged in Yemen's Supreme Court. However, her hope ended in the wind after the country's top court dismissed her plea against the death sentence on Nov 13, this year.

Nimisha's mother meanwhile approached the Delhi High Court, seeking permission to travel to Yemen to negotiate the "blood money" to save her daughter, reported PTI. Blood money is the compensation given by an offender or his kin to the family of the victim.

Notably,  travel to Yemen has been banned for Indian nationals since 2017 due to the civil war in the Arab nation. Here's everything about Priya and the case.

Who Is Nimisha Priya?

A resident of the Palakkad district of Kerala, Nimisha Priya had gone to Yemen with her husband in the year 2014 or perhaps even before. However, due to some financial crisis, her husband and children returned, but Nimisha stayed in Yemen. She approached a Yemeni national, Talal Abdo Mahdi, to open her clinic as the local law states that only Yemeni nationals can apply or be involved in the licensing process. However, she did not get any help from Talal and in 2015, opened her clinic with the help of her friend Abdul Hanan.

Case In Which Nimisha Was Handed Death Sentence

According to Nimisha, as per a report in The News Minute, when she started earning from the clinic, Talal began asking for his share and started harassing her. According to the report, Talal also made fake marriage documents and claimed that Nimisha was his wife. In 2016, Nimisha complained about Talal to the police, after which he was arrested. However, soon after he came out of jail, he took hold of Nimisha's passport.

Then, in 2017, to get her passport back, Nimisha injected Talal with sedatives so that she could control him. However, Talal later died of an injection overdose. She sought Abdul Hanan's help and the duo chopped his body and disposed it in a water tank, stated a Times Now report. 

Nimisha's Legal Battle

Nimishan and Abdul were arrested in August 2017 and were sentenced to life imprisonment. However,  after a year, a lower court sentenced Priya to death. In her defence, she argued that Talal used to torture her and also beat her up many times. She said that Talal used to consume drugs and sometimes harassed her a lot. However, the sentence was kept as it is and recently, the Yemeni top court upheld the punishment while dismissing her petition.

What Options Does Nimisha Have Now?

The Central Government has informed the Delhi High Court that only the President of Yemen can pardon Nimisha's death sentence. Her mother and 'Save Nimisha Priya International Action Council' approached the high court last year, seeking a direction to the Centre to "facilitate diplomatic interventions as well as negotiations with the family of the victim on behalf of Nimisha Priya to save her life by paying blood money in accordance with the law of the land in a time-bound manner", reported PTI.

In 2022, Talal Abdo Mahdi's family had sought 50 million Yemeni Riyal i.e. Rs 1,52,32,757 as blood money. Yemeni officials had also met Nimisha in jail and expressed the wishes of the victim's family. Although, earlier Nimisha's family had offered blood money to Mahdi's family, but they kept on with their demand for a death sentence to Nimisha. Now Nimisha's mother and the forum have appealed to the court and sought permission to go to Yemen so that they can meet and talk to the victim's family.