Sanaa: Abdul Fattah Mahdi, the brother of murdered Yemeni businessman Talal Abdo Mahdi, has renewed calls for the immediate execution of Indian nurse Nimisha Priya, convicted of killing Mahdi in 2017.
In a Facebook post on Saturday, August 9, Abdul Fattah said his family had met Yemen’s Deputy Attorney General to demand a fixed date for carrying out the death sentence.
He also shared a formal letter addressed to Attorney General Abdul Salam Hussein Zaid Al-Mohammedi, urging “swift enforcement” of the qisas (retaliation) verdict without further delay.
The letter, signed by the victim’s heirs, described the killing as a “brutal and unprecedented” crime in Yemen’s history, one that shocked the public and drew condemnation locally and internationally. Court findings said that Priya killed Talal, dismembered his body, placed the remains in bags, and concealed them in a sealed underground water tank.
Years of court battles and shocking crime
Priya, 37-year-old, hails from Kerala’s Palakkad district and moved to Yemen in 2008 to work at private hospitals before opening a clinic with Talal in 2014. Business disputes strained their partnership, but they resumed working together in 2015.
Court records state Mahdi later withheld her earnings, forged documents to claim she was his wife, and took her passport, which led to his arrest in 2016.
In 2017, while trying to retrieve her passport, Priya gave Mahdi sedatives that caused a fatal overdose. She and a Yemeni colleague, Hanan, then dismembered the body and hid the remains in a water tank.
A Yemeni court sentenced her to death in 2018, while Hanan received life imprisonment. The Supreme Court upheld the ruling in November 2023.
Priya’s execution was scheduled for July 16, but it was postponed. The development comes after a meeting between representatives of prominent Sufi scholar Sheikh Habib Umar bin Hafiz and the family of Mahdi.
India has no diplomatic presence in Yemen, so officials at the Indian mission in Saudi Arabia are handling the matter.
India’s Ministry of External Affairs on Friday, August 1, said it is providing assistance in the case, which is being monitored through its mission in Saudi Arabia due to the absence of diplomatic representation in Yemen. Priya is being held in Sana’a, under Houthi control.
In a similar case in Saudi Arabia, Kozhikode-native Abdul Rahim was released after years in prison for killing a Saudi boy, when the victim’s family accepted Rs 34 crore as blood money.
