Nimisha Priya | Hanging fire

The clock seems ticking for 37-year-old Indian nurse Nimisha Priya, who is on death row at the Central prison in Yemen’s capital Sanaa for the alleged murder of Talal Abdo Mahdi, a Yemeni national. Media reports that emerged two weeks ago had stated that her execution was scheduled on July 16. Her family members and well-wishers felt a glimmer of hope after last-minute diplomatic and other interventions resulted in the postponement of her sentence. However, it remained short-lived as a social media post by the victim’s brother Abdul Fatah Mahdi said “justice would prevail”, and affirmed that “retribution would come regardless of any delays in the execution”.

A nurse from Kerala, Nimisha has been imprisoned in Sanaa’s central jail since 2017, convicted of murdering Mahdi, her business partner. A native of Kollengode in Palakkad district, she left for Yemen in 2008 with dreams of securing a better future for her parents, who worked as domestic helps. She landed a job at a government-run hospital in Sanaa. She worked there until 2011, before returning to Kerala to marry Tomy Thomas, a daily-wage labourer and native of Thodupuzha in Idukki district.

The civil war in Yemen that resulted in the Houthi rebels gaining control over Sanaa in 2014 shattered Nimisha’s dreams. The Government of India issued an advisory in April 2015 asking Indian nationals not to travel to Yemen owing to the adverse political and security situation.

In 2015, Nimisha quit her low-paying hospital job to start her own clinic. However, Yemeni law required nationals to own and operate businesses, forcing her to partner with Mahdi to set up the venture. The same year, Mahdi accompanied her to Kerala when she came home for a month-long holiday. A petition filed by Nimisha’s 58-year-old mother, Premakumari, in December 2023 before the Delhi High Court, seeking the Centre’s permission to visit her daughter, stated that her relationship with Mahdi deteriorated over time after he allegedly began torturing her and siphoned off all the clinic’s revenue.

In July 2017, desperate for a way-out, Nimisha sought advice from a jail warden near her clinic where Mahdi had previously been allegedly imprisoned for various offences. The warden allegedly suggested sedating Mahdi to recover her passport. However, an apparent overdose resulted in his death, says the petition. Nearly a month later, Nimisha was arrested near Yemen’s border with Saudi Arabia after Mahdi’s dismembered body was discovered in a water tank.

Death penalty

She was sentenced to death by a trial court in Sanaa in 2020 and the Houthi Supreme Political Council dismissed her appeal in November 2023. The appeal court kept open the option of paying blood money (diyah) — in accordance with Shariah law — to the murdered man’s family and be pardoned for the crime.

The efforts to release her from prison gained momentum after the formation of Save Nimisha Priya International Action Council, a collective comprising elected representatives, lawyers and human rights activists. But the case had posed significant challenges in view of India’s lack of official ties with the Houthis. Ms. Premakumari met her daughter after a long gap at the prison in Sanaa on April 24, 2024 following the Delhi High Court’s directive in December 2023 asking the Centre to relax its 2017 notification that barred Indian passport holders from travelling to Yemen. She has been staying in Sanaa since then amid hopes of securing the release of her daughter.

As the deadlock continues, the Indian government says it is in contact with “local authorities” in Sanaa, as well with some “friendly governments” in the region to push for her release. Kanthapuram A.P. Aboobacker Musliar, a religious leader from Kerala, who had reportedly intervened through his friend and Yemeni Sufi scholar Sheikh Habib Umar bin Hafiz to convince the victim’s family to pardon Nimisha, says “talks had been under way with Talal’s family despite their strong desire for retribution”.