Victim’s family refuses to pardon Indian nurse on death row in Yemen: ‘Blood cannot be bought’

Brother of victim denounces moves to delay execution of Nimisha Priya

The family of a Yemeni man killed by an Indian nurse has refused to grant her a pardon, dashing hopes of her family to negotiate a deal that will save her from execution.

Talal Abdo Mahdi’s brother said they “reject any form of settlement” and that “blood cannot be bought”, a day after the execution of Nimisha Priya was postponed following a pressure campaign to buy time for clemency.

Priya, 38, from the southern Indian state of Kerala, was found guilty of murdering her business partner in 2017 and was sentenced to death in 2020. Priya has denied killing Mahdi, whose chopped-up remains were found in a water tank.

“We were not surprised by the recent delay in the execution, though we did not expect it. Those who intervened know full well that we reject any form of settlement,” Mahdi’s brother Abdelfattah Mahdi said in a Facebook post.

“Justice, for us, means execution. No amount of pressure or delay will alter that. Blood cannot be bought,” Abdelfattah Mahdi stated. He added that while the execution had been postponed, the family would persist until justice is served, “with God’s help.”

The brother said he was not surprised by the attempts to delay the execution, saying there were “covert attempts at mediation”.

Nimisha Priya was found guilty of murdering Talal Abdo Mahdi in 2017 (Handout)

“But the pressure we faced did not change us. Our demand is clear: qisas (the principle of retaliation in kind), and nothing else, no matter what.”

It came a day after the president of Yemen, Rashad al-Alimi, postponed the execution of Priya a day prior to Wednesday, when she was set to be executed.

The postponement of the sentencing was only a temporary relief for Priya, as only a pardon by the victim’s family can save her from the imminent execution.

According to Yemen’s Islamic judicial system, murder, drug trafficking, apostasy, adultery, and same-sex relations are punished by death and it allows a murder convict to be pardoned by the victim’s kin in exchange for diyat, or “blood money”.

Her family in India has said they have already raised $1m (£735,000) and offered the money to Mahdi's family, which is reluctant to pardon her.

Priya arrived in Yemen to work as a nurse in 2008. She launched a clinic in partnership with Mehdi, in line with Yemeni law that required foreign entrepreneurs to collaborate with citizens.

However, she was arrested in 2017 after Mahdi was murdered and his body was found in a tank.

Her family previously alleged that Priya faced mental, physical and financial abuse at his hands. She had even filed a police complaint against him in 2016, leading to his brief arrest. He allegedly resumed threatening her after getting out. The family has denied the allegations.

In 2020, a local court sentenced her to death. The decision was challenged in the Supreme Court but the appeal was rejected in 2023.

The nurse’s mother, a domestic worker in Kochi city, has been in Yemen for the past year trying to save her daughter.

The woman remains imprisoned in Sanaa, the capital of Yemen, which is under the control of Houthi forces.