Nimisha Priya, from Palakkad district, has been charged with the murder a Yemen national Talal Abdu Mahdi.
Credit: DH Photo
Thiruvananthapuram: The Yemen prison authorities reportedly decided to execute the death sentence of Malayali nurse Nimisha Priya on July 16.
According to members of an action council working for her release, the prison authorities informed that the death sentence will be executed on July 16.
Human rights activist Samuel Jerome, who was helping the family in the negotiations, told a section of media that the Yemen prison officials informed that the sentence date. The Yemen authorities were also learnt to have communicated it to the Indian officials.
The action council members are still hopeful that strong intervention from the Indian government could secure her release.
Priya (37), hailing from Palakkad district, is facing death row on charges of murdering her Yemeni business partner Talal Abdu Mahdi following a dispute in 2017. Efforts were being made to get pardon by paying blood money.
Her elderly mother Premakumari had traveled to Yemen with the support of volunteers to seek her release.
An amount of Rs 34,32,177 ($40,000) was already given to the tribal leaders of Yemen as part of the negotiation. The action council was learnt to have even offered Rs 8 crore ($1 million). Even then there was no positive response from the family of the Yemeni national.
Priya who went to Yemen in 2011 later started a clinic in partnership with the Yemeni national. Mahdi allegedly cheated her and tortured her mentally and physically. He also allegedly took her passport and refused to return.
Subsequently, in a desperate bid to get her passport back Priya allegedly injected sedatives on him, which ended up in his death. She was sentenced to death in 2020. Yemen's supreme judicial council upheld the verdict in November 2023. She is at a prison in Yemen's capital Sana'a.