A Yemen court today rejected an appeal submitted in the court against the death sentence awarded to Nimisha Priya in connection with the murder case of a Yemeni citizen. The appeal submitted by her family was heard by an appeal court in Sanaa on Monday.
The incident took place in 2017. Nimisha, a native of Palakkad, was arrested for the murder of Yemeni citizen Talal Abdul Mahdi. Later, the lower court pronounced a death sentence. Following this, her family approached the Court of Appeal. However, the appellate court upheld the lower court’s decision based on the evidence.
The petition sought the commutation of the sentence on the grounds of being a woman and having a family. She claimed that she had an elderly mother and a minor to look after.
The next option for Nimishapriya is to approach the Supreme Judicial Council. However, under the current legal system of Yemen, it is unlikely that Nimisha will receive any mercy as her claims tabled by her are already rejected. Both the lower court and appellate court have rejected all the reasons she argued in the petition.
Nimisha, technically, can approach the Supreme Judicial Council, headed by the President of Yemen. The panel, however, will only look into whether the legal proceedings in the case so far have been technically correct. The Supreme Judicial Council will not go into the merits of the case. Therefore, the changes for the sentence to be commuted is close to none.
Another way for her to escape from the death penalty is by gaining pardon from the family of the deceased. Here, she needed to submit blood money to the family to receive pardon. But the family of Talal Abdul Mahdi is not yet ready to pardon her.
When the case was heard by the appellate court last week, Mahdi’s family arrived and protested outside the court. They also demanded that the death sentence be carried out as soon as possible.
As per the case, Nimisha killed and chopped Talal into pieces and hid him in a suitcase. Talal had claimed that he married Nimisha by forging documents. Nimisha claimed that she approached him for help to start her own clinic and he defrauded her.
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