Negotiations for Nimisha Priya's release going positively; several challenges ahead: Samuel Jerome

Palakkad: Human rights activist Samuel Jerome, who will accompany Nimisha Priya's mother Premakumari to Yemen on Saturday, said the negotiations for the release of the nurse, who has been sentenced to death there in a murder case, are going positively so far. Nimisha Priya's release is only possible through negotiations with the family and the tribe of the slain.

Talking to Manorama News, Samuel said: "The situation is quite serious now that the order issuing the death sentence is in the possession of the Yemeni president. There is no legal recourse. Only discussions with family and their tribe will ensure Nimisha Priya's release. Talal's (victim) brother has been informed about Premakumari coming to Yemen to meet her daughter and the family. Initial negotiations alone can cost $40,000. The blood money to be paid is not decided by the family but by the head of their tribe."

Samuel further said had Manorama News not published Nimisha Priya's letter in 2017, she wouldn't be alive. Samuel, a Tamil Nadu native who has been working in Yemen for over 30 years, arrived in Kochi to accompany Premakumari tomorrow.

Case in a nutshell
Palakkad native Nimisha Priya had been working in Yemen when travel to and from the country was banned in 2016 due to the civil war there. Her husband and daughter returned to India in 2014, but she couldn't due to her job. In 2015, with the help of a Yemeni national Talal Mahdi, she set up a clinic.

Soon, differences cropped up between her and Mahdi and she alleged that he abused and tortured her. The Yemeni also took her passport away, making her trip back home impossible. Mahdi also misrepresented himself as her husband to the Yemeni authorities, due to which she couldn't get any aid from them, she alleged in her statement.

On July 25, 2017, she injected Mahdi with sedatives to render him unconscious to take her passport back and flee from there. But things went awry and he collapsed a while after she administered the sedative.

Realising that Mahdi had died, she disposed of his body, with another person's help. Four days later, the crime surfaced and both were arrested. Nimisha was sentenced to death and the other person was sentenced to life.