A court in Yemen on Monday, March 7, dismissed an appeal filed by Kerala native Nimisha Priya, who has been sentenced to death for the murder of a Yemeni national in 2017. Nimisha stands accused of the murder of Talal Abdo Mahdi, a Yemeni national, who died in July 2017 after Nimisha injected him with sedatives to get to her passport that was in his possession. Nimisha had alleged abuse and torture by Talal.
Nimisha in 2020 had filed an appeal against the death penalty in a court in the Yemen capital Sana’a. However, the court has upheld the death sentence. Jayan Edappal, the general convener of an international action council that is helping Nimisha in Yemen, told TNM that they will approach the Supreme Court in Yemen against the verdict. They will also try to look for other means to help Nimisha out, he says. Nimisha had earlier told TNM that if the courts do not accept her appeal, one possible way to escape the death penalty was blood money.
"We will appeal in the Supreme Court. Simultaneously, we will figure out other options like initiating talks about giving blood money. For this, we will reach out to the Yemen Ambassador in India will be communicated," he said. Jayan also said that Nimisha's family has also been informed about the verdict.
The 32-year-old Nimisha, a native of Kerala, who had been running a clinic in Yemen since 2015, had accused the Yemeni national Talal of torturing her for two years. Nimisha had said that she had not meant to kill him, and that wanted access to her passport while he was sedated.
Earlier, speaking to TNM in 2020 after she was sentenced to the death penalty, Nimisha had alleged that Talal had been harassing her and her family for years, taking money from there and even claiming to her husband. She had taken the help of Talal, who used to run a clothes shop in Yemen, to set up her clinic in 2015. Her husband and child had gone to Kerala and could not come back as the civil war broke out in Yemen and the country stopped issuing new visas. Nimisha had narrated to TNM that this is when Talal started harassing Nimisha.
A while after Nimisha’s clinic began, Talal added his name as a shareholder of the clinic without informing her. He also began to take money out of her monthly earnings after telling everyone that Nimisha was his wife and even morphed their pictures to show they were married.
The harassment then converted into physical torture. Nimisha had told TNM that he used to attack her physically in front of the hospital staff, thrash her and even spit on her. “He confiscated my passport, he forced me to live with him. He would come to my house inebriated and attack me physically, threaten me to obey him, inflict injuries on me. He used to even bring his friends to my house at night, force me to do sexual favours for them. I used to run out each time to protect myself,” Nimisha had shared.
In July 2017, Nimisha took the help of a warden of a jail located near her clinic, where Talal had been jailed previously under various charges. The warden suggested that she try to sedate him, and then convince him to give her her passport. However, Nimisha said that it did not affect Talal, who was a substance abuser. She tried sedating him again, using a stronger sedative.
“Then another day in July 2017 while he was in my house doing drugs, I injected him with Ketamine, a sedative. A few minutes later, he fell on the floor and started to scream out loud. But suddenly, he stopped and laid still. There was no breath and when I checked his pulse, I couldn’t get it,” Nimisha recalls.
After his murder, Talal was cut into parts and was disposed of in a water tank. Nimisha and a Yemeni nurse, Hanan, who helped her to dispose of the body, were arrested a month after the murder. Hanan, who is also a co-accused in the case, has been sentenced to life imprisonment.