An Indian nurse who is on death row in war-torn Yemen is set to be executed on 16 July, campaigners working to save her have told the BBC.
Nimisha Priya was sentenced to death for the murder of a local man – her former business partner Talal Abdo Mahdi – whose chopped-up body was discovered in a water tank in 2017.
The only way she can be saved is if Mahdi’s family pardons her. Her relatives and supporters have offered $1m (£735,000) as diyah, or blood money, to be paid to Mahdi’s family.
“We are still waiting for their pardon or any other demands,” a member of the Save Nimisha Priya Council told the BBC.
“The execution date has been conveyed by the director general of prosecution to jail authorities . We are still trying to save her. But ultimately the family has to agree for pardon,” Babu John, social activist and member of the council said.
An official in India’s ministry of external affairs told BBC that they were still trying to confirm the details.
Nimisha Priya had left the southern Indian state of Kerala for Yemen in 2008 to work as a nurse.
She was arrested in 2017 after Mahdi’s body was discovered. The 34-year-old is presently lodged in Sanaa central jail in the capital of Yemen.
She was charged with killing Mahdi by giving him an “overdose of sedatives” and allegedly chopping up his body.
Nimisha denied the allegations. In court, her lawyer argued that Mahdi physically tortured her, snatched all her money, seized her passport and even threatened her with a gun.
He said she had tried to anaesthetise Mahdi just to retrieve her passport from him, but that the dose was accidentally increased.
In 2020, a local court sentenced her to death. Her family challenged the decision in Yemen’s Supreme Court, but their appeal was rejected in 2023.
In early January, Mahdi al-Mashat, president of the rebel Houthis’ Supreme Political Council, approved her execution.
Yemen’s Islamic judicial system, known as Sharia, offer her one last ray of hope – securing a pardon from the victim’s family by paying blood money to them.
Nimisha’s mother, a poor domestic helper from Kerala, has been in Yemen since April 2014 in a last-ditch effort to save her.
She has nominated Samuel Jerome, a Yemen-based social worker, to negotiate with Mahdi’s family.
A lobby group called Save Nimisha Priya International Action Council has been raising money by crowdfunding for the purpose and Mr Jerome has said that $1m has been offered to Mahdi’s family.
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