The family of Yemini resident Talal Abdo Mahdi, for whose murder Indian nurse Nimisha Priya has been sentenced to death, have said that they would settle for nothing less than her being put to death.
Nimisha Priya, who hails from Kollengode in Kerala's Palakkad district, was sentenced to death in 2020 for the murder of Talal Abdo Mahdi in 2017.
Her death sentence was set to be carried out on July 16. However, it was postponed on July 15, according to documents seen by HT, a prominent cleric, and her family.
The Yemeni administration issued an order dated July 14 in Arabic and said that Priya’s execution was deferred until a new date is announced. The Grand Mufti of India, Kerala Sunni cleric Kanthapuram AP Aboobacker Musaliyar, confirmed the order and said he spoke to prominent Yemeni scholars on behalf of the family.
Also read: Nimisha Priya case: Victim's family in Yemen demands ‘God's Law in Qisas’. What does it mean?
In an interview with the BBC before Nimisha Priya's execution was postponed, Mahdi's family made clear that they would settle for nothing less than her being put to death.
{{/usCountry}}In an interview with the BBC before Nimisha Priya's execution was postponed, Mahdi's family made clear that they would settle for nothing less than her being put to death.
{{/usCountry}}Also Read | Why ‘Grand Mufti of India’ stepped in to halt Kerala nurse Nimisha Priya's execution in Yemen
"Our stance on the attempts at reconciliation is clear; we insist on implementing God's Law in Qisas [retaliation in kind], nothing else," his brother, Abdelfattah Mahdi, had told BBC Arabic on Monday.
Abdelfattah Mahdi had said his family had suffered "not only from the brutal crime but also the long, exhausting litigation process in a horrible and heinous but obvious crime case".
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Nimisha, a native of Kollengode in the Palakkad district of Kerala, went to Yemen as a 19-year-old in 2008 in search of nursing jobs. In 2020, she was found guilty by a local court for murdering Mahdi by injecting him with sedatives.
The Kerala nurse, who had started a clinic in alleged partnership with Talal, sedated him to recover her passport, which he had illegally held onto. Nimisha claims she was physically and financially exploited by Talal, forcing her to sedate him, but he died due to an overdose.
However, NDTV reported that late into the night before her execution, something changed. "For the first time since the case began, the brother of the victim came to the table," NDTV quoted Subhash Chandran, lawyer and core member of the council, as saying.
"We talked all night. By late morning, the execution was deferred. We got what we wanted, some time to persuade the family now," Subhash Chandran added.