Nimisha Priya, a nurse from Kerala who was imprisoned for the murder of a Yemeni national, is scheduled to be executed on July 16, according to various media sources.

Samuel Jerome, a human rights advocate and the power of attorney holder for Nimisha Priya’s mother, Prema Kumari, informed Onmanorama that the prison officials in Yemen have notified him of her execution date.

Priya, originally from the Palakkad district in Kerala, relocated to Yemen in 2011 after finishing her nursing training. She made this move to support her parents, who work as daily wage laborers, as reported.

At first, she worked tirelessly in multiple hospitals across Yemen before deciding to establish her own clinic. In 2014, she met Talal Abdo Mahdi, who promised to help her set up her clinic in Yemen, a long-held aspiration of hers.

Yemeni business regulations stipulate that a foreigner must partner with a local to start a business in the country. They formed a partnership and agreed on the terms to open the clinic, in compliance with the law.

She successfully launched her clinic in 2015 with Mahdi in Sana’a, but soon after, conflicts arose between them. She accused Mahdi of abuse and torture, and he allegedly confiscated her passport to prevent her from leaving Yemen.

She filed a police report against Mahdi, which resulted in his arrest in 2016. However, he was released not long after, according to local news reports.

The situation escalated tragically when the two had a confrontation in 2017. In a bid to recover her passport and return to India, she sought assistance from a local jail warden, who advised her to use sedatives to incapacitate Mahdi.

Following this advice, she injected him with sedatives in an effort to get her passport back. Unfortunately, he died from an overdose, which led to her arrest and subsequent conviction in the case.

Her mother, Prema Kumari, had even taken her case to the Yemeni Supreme Court in an attempt to contest the death sentence, but the appeal was denied in 2023.

In 2017, a trial court in Yemen sentenced Priya to death, a ruling that was subsequently confirmed by the Yemeni Supreme Court in 2023. President Rashad al-Alimi also sanctioned her death sentence.