NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Monday directed Premakumari, the mother of Nimisha Priya, a Kerala nurse facing a death sentence in Yemen for her involvement in the murder of a local citizen, to furnish documents illustrating the legal option of blood money in the foreign court. This financial compensation is considered a last resort to negotiate with the victim’s family and potentially save her daughter.
The petitioner, Premakumari, who hails from Kollengode in Kerala’s Palakkad, approached the Delhi High Court seeking permission to travel to the foreign country along with three others, despite restrictions on Indians visiting the region. The Central Government informed the court that India lacks diplomatic ties with Yemen, and its embassy there has been closed.
Nimisha’s only potential reprieve hinges on the victim’s family, the late Talal Abdo Mahdi, pardoning her in exchange for blood money, a compensation paid by the offender or their kin, in accordance with Sharia law and diplomatic intervention.
During Monday’s hearing before Justice Subramonium Prasad, it was disclosed that Yemen’s Supreme Court had, on November 13, rejected Nimisha’s appeal, affirming the death sentence and leaving payment of blood money as the sole means of escaping capital punishment.
Justice Subramonium Prasad instructed, “File that portion with an affidavit where the Yemen court, while awarding the death penalty, has given this legal option of paying blood money,” and listed the matter for Tuesday. Advocate Subhash Chandran K R, representing Priya’s mother, informed the high court that blood money is a recognized part of the legal system in the Middle Eastern country, permitted under Sharia law.
Nimisha, a Kerala nurse, had been working in Yemen when travel to and from the country was prohibited in 2016 due to the Civil War. While her husband and daughter returned to India in 2014, she remained due to work commitments. In 2015, with the assistance of Yemeni national Talal Mahdi, she established a clinic. However, conflicts arose, alleging abuse and torture by Mahdi, who also confiscated her passport, preventing her return to her home state. Mahdi falsely presented himself as her husband to Yemeni authorities, obstructing any aid from them.
Priya stands convicted of the murder of Talal Abdo Mahdi, who died in July 2017 after she injected him with sedatives in an attempt to reclaim her passport. It was alleged that Priya gave him sedatives leading to accidental overdose and death.
