New Delhi/Thiruvananthapuram : With death staring at Kerala nurse Nimisha Priya, jailed in Yemen after being pronounced guilty of killing a Yemeni national, a collective ‘Save Nimisha Forum’ working for Nimisha’s release, has managed to get retired Supreme Court judge Kurian Joseph to act as interlocutor to see how her life can be saved.
The Forum operating in Delhi has been trying to see how this can be achieved and Joseph said he is happy to contribute.
Joseph will soon get a team of former diplomats and if necessary he will travel to Yemen to speak to the family of the Yemeni national.
The Forum is also getting ready to bring the little daughter of Priya and her mother to the forefront and they are also getting ready to travel to Yemen to make one last attempt.
According to Yemeni rules, the only possibility of any reprieve for Nimisha is if the family of Talal Mahdi pardons her for blood money — compensation paid by an offender or his kin to the family of the victim — in accordance with the Sharia law and diplomatic intervention. This is what the Forum is aiming for and hopes that Joseph will be able to swing it.
It was last month that a Yemeni court dismissed the appeal of Priya in the murder case of Talal Mahdi, in which she, along with another person, are the prime accused.
The two have been sentenced to death for the murder of Mahdi in 2017.
Hailing from Palakkad, Nimisha a nurse by profession, reached Yemen in 2012 with her husband. In 2015, with the help of Talal Mahdi, she set up a clinic. By this time her husband and their child had returned home.
Soon, differences cropped up between her and Mahdi and she accused him of torturing her and taking away her passport, making her trip back to her home state impossible.
On July 25, 2017, she injected Talal with sedatives with the aim of sedating him and take her passport back and flee.
But things went wrong and he collapsed after being administered the sedative.
Realising that Mahdi has died, with another’s person help she disposed off his body, which was cut into pieces in a water tank.
Four days later, the crime surfaced and both were arrested and while Nimisha was sentenced to death, the other person was sentenced to life.
The news came out only when a Kerala gospel worker reached a jail in Yemen to preach. Nimisha handed over a letter to him describing the entire incident.
–IANS