SC to hear plea on July 14 seeking relief for Kerala nurse Nimisha Priya
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New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday agreed to hear on July 14 a petition urging the Centre to intervene diplomatically to prevent the execution of Kerala nurse Nimisha Priya in Yemen.
An Indian national, Priya has been sentenced to death for the 2017 murder of Yemeni citizen Talal Abdo Mahdi. She has been incarcerated in Yemen for the past three years and is tentatively scheduled to be executed on July 16, following final approval by Yemeni President Rashad al-Alimi.
The petition, filed by the "Save Nimisha Priya Action Council", was mentioned for urgent listing. A bench of justices Sudhanshu Dhulia and Joymalya Bagchi agreed to hear it and directed the petitioner’s counsel to serve an advance copy to the Attorney General of India, the government’s top legal advisor.
The plea refers to Sharia law, stating that the death penalty could be revoked through the payment of diya (blood money) to the victim’s family.
Originally from Kollengode in Kerala’s Palakkad district, Priya moved to Yemen in 2008 to support her daily-wage labourer parents. She worked across several hospitals and eventually set up her own clinic. In 2017, she fell into a dispute with her business partner Mahdi, allegedly over his attempts to misappropriate funds.
As per her family’s account, Priya injected Mahdi with sedatives in an attempt to retrieve her confiscated passport. The incident led to an overdose and his death. She was arrested while trying to flee the country and was convicted of murder in 2018.
In 2020, a trial court in Sanaa sentenced her to death. The Supreme Judicial Council of Yemen upheld the verdict in November 2023 while keeping the option for blood money negotiations open.
Priya’s mother, Prema Kumari, 57, has been campaigning relentlessly for the waiver of the death sentence. She even travelled to Sanaa to initiate negotiations with the victim’s family. Her efforts have been backed by the Save Nimisha Priya International Action Council, an organisation comprising NRI social workers based in Yemen.
(inputs from IANS)
