In a special hearing held on Saturday, December 3, the Delhi High Court issued notice to the Union government on a plea filed by a Kerala woman seeking facilitation of her travel to Yemen, to negotiate with the victim's family about paying blood money to save her daughter who's on death row in the West Asian country. The plea filed by the mother of Nimisha Priya, an Indian citizen who has been sentenced to death in Yemen for the murder of a Yemeni national, stated that the Union government did not grant permission to the petitioner and advised her and other accompanying persons not to go to that country at this juncture.
A bench of Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora was apprised that now the only way to save daughter's life is getting pardon from the family of the victim by paying 'blood money'. It needs to be mentioned that a travel ban by the Union government is in place preventing Indian nationals from visiting Yemen.
In an earlier hearing, the Union government’s senior standing counsel had orally apprised the high court that the Supreme Court of Yemen had dismissed the appeal filed by Nimisha Priya on November 13. Nimisha Priya's mother believes that the only way to save her daughter from death penalty is to negotiate with the deceased's family by offering ‘blood money’. However, she is currently unable to do so due to the travel restrictions.
It is alleged that Nimisha Priya, who worked as a nurse in Yemen, had injected Talal Abdo Mahdi with sedatives to retrieve her passport, which he had in his possession. She had reportedly suffered abuse and torture at the hands of Mahdi.
Last year, a Coordinate Bench had disposed of a petition requesting the Union government to facilitate negotiations with the victim's family to save Nimisha Priya from death penalty by paying ‘blood money’ in accordance with Yemeni law. Subsequently, an appeal against the single-judge bench's order was dismissed by a division bench.