Drawing the Centre’s attention to the plight of Indian nurse Nimisha Priya, who is facing capital punishment in Yemen, Kerala MP Binoy Viswam wrote a letter to External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar. The Member of Parliament from Kerala has asked the Minister to intervene urgently to help Nimisha.
The 30-year-old nurse from Kerala was sentenced to death by a court in Yemen for murdering a Yemeni man, who had been torturing her for two years. In an interview to TNM from the central prison in Yemen’s Sana’a, Nimisha had said that she was sentenced to death as she did not receive any legal assistance on time.
Explaining the adversities faced by Nimisha, MP Binoy Viswam wrote, “Nimisha had faced immense hardship, abuse, harassment and torture at the hand of her victim before she took his life. In 2015, the Yemeni national had defrauded her by adding himself as a shareholder in a clinic she had started, without her knowledge. Later, he pretended to be her husband, harassed her physically and emotionally, forced her to live with him and withheld her passport.”
The MP pointed out that Nimisha did not get any legal aid during the course of the trial. “The lack of adequate legal representation has prejudiced her during the trial and eventually led to her receiving the death penalty for a crime she committed under duress,” wrote Binoy Viswam, who is also the leader of CPI.
Urging the External Affair Minister to intervene in the matter, he said, “I urge you to use the power of your office and explore all diplomatic interventions that can be exercised given the current situation in Yemen. At the very least, it is essential that (Nimisha) Priya is provided with adequate legal representation in order to pursue her legal options according to the law of Yemen.”
The MP also informed the Centre that he is in contact with Nimisha’s husband who is in Kerala, and that he is willing to provide any assistance.
On Wednesday, Nimisha filed an appeal against her death sentence.
It was in 2017 that Nimisha killed Talal Abdo Mahdi, a Yemeni native. After she sedated him, she along with another Yemeni nurse chopped his body into pieces and dumped it in a water tank. Speaking to TNM, Nimisha had said that she had not intended to murder him, rather was only trying to sedate him to get back her passport, which Talal had withheld.
Meanwhile, social workers and Indian Embassy representatives from Yemen and India are trying to find another lawyer, who would be able to negotiate with the victim’s family and convince them to accept blood money as an out-of-court settlement. The team has also requested a tribal sheikh (leader) to intervene and convince the family. If the family accepts the blood money (which is yet to be negotiated or finalised) and says they forgive Nimisha, the court will either reduce Nimisha’s prison sentence or probably grant her freedom, a few members from the team had told TNM.