The Central government on Monday, July 14, told the Supreme Court that it has done all it can to intervene in the case of Nimisha Priya, the Indian nurse from Kerala who is facing execution in Yemen on July 16 for the alleged murder of a Yemeni national.
Appearing before the court during an emergency hearing, Attorney General R. Venkataramani stated that diplomatic efforts have hit a wall due to Yemen’s political instability and India’s lack of formal diplomatic relations with the Houthi-controlled region where Priya is imprisoned.
“There is only so far the Government of India can go,” Venkataramani told the bench. “Given the sensitivity of the situation in Yemen, where we don’t have diplomatic recognition, the scope for intervention is very limited. Even the option of negotiating ‘blood money’ rests solely with the victim’s family, and they are unwilling to accept it.”
Priya, a resident of Palakkad district in Kerala, has been convicted in Yemen for the 2017 murder of her business partner, Talal Abdo Mehdi, a Yemeni national. She is accused of drugging him with the help of another nurse, killing him, and then disposing of his dismembered body in an underground water tank. Despite multiple appeals, Yemeni courts have upheld her death sentence.
Her supporters argue that she acted in self-defense, claiming that Mehdi physically abused her, withheld her passport, and controlled her finances. According to Priya, the sedatives were intended only to incapacitate him so she could retrieve her passport. She insists his death was unintentional, the result of an overdose.
Priya had moved to Yemen in 2008 for work and married fellow nurse Tommy Thomas in 2011. After civil war broke out in Yemen in 2014, her husband and daughter returned to Kerala, while she remained in the country and went on to open a nursing clinic in partnership with Mehdi.
Efforts by humanitarian organisations and community groups to mediate with Yemeni authorities and the victim’s family have so far failed. The execution is set to take place in Sana’a, the Yemeni capital under Houthi control, where diplomatic access is severely restricted.
“We are trying quietly, through private channels, involving some influential Sheikhs and intermediaries. But this is not a normal diplomatic scenario,” the Attorney General said, noting that any overt action could further jeopardise Priya’s situation. “It is very unfortunate, but there is nothing more the government can be directed to do at this stage.”
Priya is currently held in Sana’a Central Prison and is slated to be executed on Tuesday unless a last-minute breakthrough occurs.
