Can $1 Million 'Blood Money' Save Indian Nurse Nimisha Priya from the Gallows in Yemen?

(This story was first published on 10 July 2025 and has been updated in light of recent developments.)Twenty-four hours before being led to the gallows, the negotiators got the news they had been waiting for. The execution order according to which Nimisha Priya would have been put to death, was suspended by Yemen’s public prosecutor, on orders from the Sanaa President.The government of India had been quietly working to buy time for Nimisha lodged in a jail in Sanaa, a city overrun by Houthi rebels and in a country where India has no diplomatic presence.A day before the reprieve, the Supreme Court heard a petition by the Save Nimisha Priya International Action Council. Representing the government of India, the Attorney General summed up the case saying,“There is a point till which the government of India can go. We have reached that. Yemen is not like any part of the world. We didn’t want to complicate the situation by going public… we are trying at private level…some Sheikh, influential people there, all that is being done…”In the battle between life and death, Yemen’s public prosecutor finally gave orders to hold back the noose. The first step of the battle is over and the second, which entails the acceptance of blood money, will begin soon.The battle was tough and the countdown had begun. An Indian nurse’s life was hanging by a slender thread in strife-torn Yemen, Nimisha, on death row for murder and set to be executed on 16 July, has received a reprieve. Sources close to the case have confirmed to The Quint that her execution was postponed on 14 July, buying her and her negotiators more time to save her life. The negotiators now have to convince the victim’s family to accept blood money in exchange for a pardon.The 36-year-old, convicted of murdering a local citizen, Talal Abdo Mahdi—whom she had partnered with to start a clinic—had been living on borrowed time since November 2023, when she was sentenced to death by Yemen’s supreme judicial council.Samuel Jerome, an Indian national, who has been based out of Yemen for over two decades, is now racing against time to help save the nurse’s life. He thought he had succeeded in persuading Mahdi’s family—and the many influential Shiekhs who exercise considerable control and influence over the various tribes in Yemen—by making an offer to pay ‘blood money.’ Speaking to The Quint from Aden, Jerome said:“Blood money is negotiated under Sharia laws. I made an offer of $1 million (approximately Rs 8.5 crore) after several meetings with the Sheikhs and Mahdi’s father and brother, but the case suddenly took a sharp turn.”Jerome was the main negotiator on behalf of Nimisha’s mother, Prema Kumari, who authorised him to represent her through a notarised power of attorney. Jerome, an aviation consultant, was also working on the case in tandem with the lawyer appointed by the Indian government through its embassy in Saudi Arabia. In Yemen itself, the Ministry of External Affairs works through local employees because it does not recognise the Houthis and does not have a diplomatic presence.The negotiations started in good earnest in January 2025, after Nimisha’s death sentence was officially signed in December 2024 by the President of Yemen (Sanaa) Mahdi Al Mashat. “The negotiations were arduous,” Jerome told The Quint. 'I Will Not Give Up Hope': Mother of Kerala Nurse Sentenced to Death in YemenSanaa, Yemen’s capital city, has been overrun by Houthi rebels and meetings between Mahdi’s family entailed long hours of travel.Jerome sensed that there was a slim sliver of hope because Nimisha’s execution could only take place once Mahdi’s family consented to her execution, in writing. For three months, he tried to persuade the family to accept blood money and pardon Nimisha and made an offer of $1 million. The blood money and the lawyer’s fee was to be crowd funded through private individuals and The Save Nimisha Priya International Action Council. After making the offer, Jerome came to India to look after his ailing mother, who was in the hospital for a month. In the first week of July, his Yemeni number rang incessantly, and Jerome says he answered it reluctantly after noticing that the calls were incoming from the same number.On answering it, he found himself talking to the chairman of Prisons, who informed him about Nimisha’s date of execution. “I was stunned...I then called the local staff in Sanaa and the Indian diplomats in the Saudi Arabia mission.”JeromeAccording to Jerome, the local staff visited the prison where Nimisha is lodged and verified the July 16 execution order. He immediately booked a ticket to return to Sanaa via Aden, but will he be able to persuade Mahdi’s family to delay the execution by withdrawing its consent?Husband Held Captive in Yemen & Wife Stuck in War-Torn Ukraine Reunite in KeralaJerome only has a few days to try and keep her from being hanged. He also has Nimisha’s mother, Prema Kumari, to take care of. Prema undertook the perilous journey to Sanaa last year, after securing a court order to travel to a war-torn country into which Indians are no longer allowed. The government gave her a waiver after she submitted an affidavit to India's Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), absolving them of any responsibility, as asked for, by the court. Prema has been living in Jerome’s home since then.When I spoke with Prema earlier this year—through Jerome, who helped translate from Malayalam to English—she said, “I believe in god. I am hoping for a miracle.”The reprieve came just in time. According to members of the committee, who are privy to the negotiations, the offer made to the Mahdi’s went beyond the financial. A promise was also made to help relocate Mahdi’s brother to a Gulf country, so he could leave the uncertainty of a strife-ridden existence behind and start a new life.The Mahdis, however, appear to have given their consent for execution, to the public prosecutor’s office, and in the race against time, Jerome will have to use all his contacts to work through the Sheikhs, who wield considerable influence over the different tribes in Yemen. “That is how society works in that country,” he said. The question now is, will the Mahdis agree to stay the execution if the sum of $1 million is upped? If yes, there is another important question that flows from the first: Will the committee be able to raise more funds? There is a precedent, also from Kerala, where a native of Kozhikode was spared the death sentence in Saudi Arabia after a massive fundraising campaign that totalled Rs 34 crore.India’s Migrant Crisis: How Many Indian Lives Will be Lost in Gulf Jails? The back story is important too. When Nimisha left Kerala’s Padakkal for Yemen in 2009, she had hoped to help lift the family out of poverty. She first worked at a government-run hospital and then at various clinics, where she met Mahdi.There was no sign of any civil strife when Nimisha travelled from Kerala to Yemen. Or when she returned to India in 2011 to marry Tomy Thomas. The newlyweds returned to Yemen together and the couple had a daughter in 2012, but Thomas was forced to return to Kochi with his child because he simply wasn’t earning enough.This is when Nimisha decided on starting a clinic and took her plans to Mahdi, who had even accompanied her to Kerala in 2015 for her daughter’s baptism ceremony. His behaviour changed after they returned, and he took away her passport. According to the petition in the Delhi High Court, "he physically tortured her and took away all the revenue collection from the clinic." According to the petition, he also threatened her with a gun and kept her passport to prevent her from leaving Yemen. She was first convicted for murder in July 2017. It was alleged that she injected Mahdi with sedatives in a desperate attempt to retrieve her passport, but he died due to an overdose. According to the chargesheet, Nimisha cut his body into pieces.Migrant rights activist and lawyer Subhash Chandran, who helped Prema Kumari secure permission to travel to Yemen, believes Nimisha was denied justice and was represented through a lawyer who only spoke Arabic. “She did not know what documents she was signing,” he says, but her fate is now sealed. Nimisha will remain in prison till the blood money formalities are agreed to and tied up. There are larger questions of how migrants remain unprotected in strife-torn areas, without adequate legal and diplomatic protection, but for now, the mother is begging forgiveness and her daughter, Nimisha, is at the mercy of the Mahdis.(Harinder Baweja is a senior journalist and author. She has been reporting on current affairs, with a particular emphasis on conflict, for the last four decades. She can be reached at @shammybaweja on Instagram and X. This is an opinion piece, and the views expressed are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)

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Can $1 Mil in 'Blood Money' Save Indian Nurse Nimisha Priya from Death in Yemen?

The execution order was suspended by Yemen’s public prosecutor on orders from the Sanaa President.

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