The nurse on death row in Yemen

ABC Listen, podcasts, radio, news, music, and more.

Hey, folks, I'm Erin Park, host of the new podcast series Expanse, Nowhere Man.

It's 1999, and a young American man's disappeared into the great sandy desert on a mysterious personal quest.

He's been missing a month, and most people think he's dead, but can an American search team save the day?

From cigar-smoking Americans to booty-wearing bloodhounds, this story just keeps on getting stranger.

This looks like a cartoon.

When you're done with If You're Listening, search expanse on the ABC Listen app.

If You're Listening is recorded on the lands of the Awapakal and Gadigal people.

Getting accused of murder is never a good thing.

The lawyers here at the ABC need me to stress that.

But hypothetically, if you are going to get accused of murder, it's generally for the best that it's not in a part of the world that barely has a functioning justice system, like for example, the Houthi-controlled areas in Yemen.

This is the reality, however, for Namesha Priya, a nurse from Kerala in India who has been convicted of murder.

The question is now whether she will be executed or whether the victim's family will accept a blood money payment to spare her life.

Our ABC South Asia correspondent Ellie Grounds has been following Namisha's story for months and the whole thing is wild.

There's murder, there is betrayal, there's high-stakes diplomatic negotiations and a whole pile of ketamine.

So let's dive in.

Ellie, good day.

Hello, Matt, how are you?

I'm excited for this story.

I have been dipping in and out of stuff happening in Yemen over the last last couple of years.

It's been quite interesting what's happening with the Houthis and that sort of thing.

But I haven't been following the criminal cases in Yemen.

But you've come across this incredible one about a woman named Namisha Priya.

Yes.

So Namesha Priya is an Indian woman in her mid to late 30s.

She's from the state of Kerala on India's west coast, and she's a nurse.

And about 15 years ago, she moved to Yemen to work as a nurse there.

And she's basically lived there ever since.

But the reason that I know about her is that on the last day of 2024, this news story started circulating amongst Indian media and then it kind of got picked up by overseas media as well that this woman, Namesha Priya, was going to be executed in Yemen in a month's time.

Okay.

So she moved to Yemen 15 years ago.

Currently, we think of Yemen as this terrible place that's racked with civil war.

Was it like that at the time?

At that time, no.

The civil war had yet to break out.

So she moves to work as a nurse.

She then marries an Indian national and they have a baby.

And then they make a decision that they would like to start a business, start a medical clinic.

But because of the laws around foreigners running businesses in Yemen, they have to get a Yemeni man to be a business partner in their business.

So they recruit this man called Talal Abdur Mahdi to be their business partner.

Then at some point, the three of them come back to Kerala for their daughter's baptism.

And Mr.

Mahdi comes with them.

Okay, so he comes with them.

He comes with them.

And the why of why he comes with them is still not clear to me.

There are many, many things in this story, twists and turns, that kind of make you question.

So obviously they have a close relationship of some kind if he is coming to India for the baptism of their daughter.

Okay.

Yes.

There are reports that he was like a previous patient, I guess, of hers.

But I wouldn't take that as gospel.

It's really not clear.

But anyway, they know each other.

They have some sort of former relationship.

I mean, it seems plausible.

You know, it seems like a plausible story.

Sure.

Yes.

So they're in India for the baptism.

Namesha Priya and Mr.

Mahdi return to Yemen first, and her husband and daughter are planning to follow.

But this is when things start going downhill in Yemen.

So Namesha Priya goes to Yemen with this man.

Her husband and her daughter are still in India.

And then this violence breaks out.

Basically, it's not just a civil war between two groups in Yemen.

It is a proxy war where one side is being supported by Iran and another side is being supported by Saudi Arabia.

There are airstrikes involved.

There is high-tech weaponry being on both sides.

It is an absolute catastrophe and humanitarian disaster across big areas of the country.

How does the Indian government respond to this breakout of violence?

So the Indian government institutes a total travel ban.

Indian nationals are not allowed to go to Yemen.

So suddenly, Namisha Priya is in this country by herself with her business partner and without access to her husband or her daughter.

And this is allegedly then when things in that relationship start going extremely south.

So allegations that this man, Talal Abdoumahi, starts financially abusing her, emotionally abusing her, physically abusing her.

Allegations that he takes her wedding photograph and digitally alters it to make it look like they are in fact husband and wife, not that she's married to her actual husband who's back in India.

She then allegedly reports that to the police.

It goes to court and he produces a forged marriage document, which the court accepts.

She then alleges that he takes her passport off her so that she's basically stuck with him.

She has no chance of leaving, which unfortunately we know is actually relatively common for situations, especially for Indian nationals in this part of the world.

Yes, that is a very common story.

So what happens?

Next?

He ends up in jail for some reason, according to the vague media reports.

She would go to jail to visit him to demand her documents back.

He gave her a passport back so she can leave.

And one particular news story then said that one of the guards at the jail was the person who suggested to her that she should try and sedate him in order to get her passport back.

Whether or not that is actually where the idea came from.

is not clear to me.

At some point, he gets out of jail.

She ends up in the same room as him and she

goes through with this plan that she is going to drug him, sedate him.

He has his guard down, his defences down, and she's able to take her passport.

Okay, so it's not really a flawless plan, but I can see how it could work.

She wants to get home to India to her husband and kid.

Yemen is in a civil war.

She needs her passport to get out of there.

The plan is to drug this guy and get her stuff back and then flee.

But that's not what happens.

So what goes wrong?

He is apparently a drug user, so the dose of ketamine that she uses to try and sedate him isn't strong enough because he's used to it.

So, then she ups the dosage, still allegedly with the intention merely to sedate him, not to kill him.

But because of the upped dosage, he overdoses and dies.

Okay, I can't really think of

a worse thing that could happen to a person than being in Yemen against your will in the midst of a horrifying civil war, unable to leave, and suddenly realizing that you have accidentally murdered a Yemeni civilian.

Yes, it's terrifying.

So, what does she do next?

So, she then reportedly calls a friend who is also a nurse, a Yemeni nurse, freaking out, I've accidentally killed him.

What should I do?

This other woman allegedly is the person who comes up with the idea that, okay, you've killed him.

We need to discard of his body and hide the evidence.

And she allegedly decides that they should cut the body up and put it in a water tank.

to dispose of him.

And this is just the kind of thing, it's happening in a movie or a crime show that you're watching and you're just like, why would you do this?

Yeah, I remember this scene from Breaking Bad.

So the body is found.

She is charged.

And then this is where the start of a legal process that is obviously very foreign to her as someone from a different country who speaks a different language begins.

And also, a legal process that even the lawyers here in India who are trying to help her don't quite understand how it played out.

Yeah, it really is the equivalent of Australian lawyers somehow trying to figure out how on earth the Yemeni legal system works, which would not be simple.

Yemen is a very, very, very different country from India.

Yes.

And at some point along the line, a lawyer here in India who is working with her,

Subhash Chandran KR, he alleges that she has been forced to sign confessional documents, which in Arabic without a translator.

So she has no idea what is going on.

She doesn't know what she's signing, and she doesn't have anyone to help her.

Oh, no.

Oh, no.

And so by the end of 2023, all avenues of appeal have been exhausted.

She's on death row.

She's waiting to be executed.

It's hard to think of someone more far from home than that.

So she gets to the end of 2023 and she has no avenues left.

But the interesting thing is, so yes, we fast forward to the last day of 2024 when I see this media release, which the Ministry of External Affairs in India is releasing because they say Yemen's president has sanctioned the execution.

And everybody sort of takes that at face value.

You know, this is the Indian Ministry of External Affairs.

They're saying, yes, we're aware of the sentencing.

We're commenting on it.

But a few days later, on the 6th of January, Yemen's embassy here in Delhi releases its own statement and it says

that can't have been true.

Yemen's president can't have sanctioned her execution because she's detained in the capital, Sana'a, and that is controlled by the Houthi rebels.

What?

Yemen's president doesn't have any jurisdiction over what happens in Sana'a.

So we've now got Yemen's embassy in Delhi saying, well, no, President Rashad Al-Alimi has not ratified the verdict.

I didn't even think to ask this.

I mean, at the moment, if you can look at a map of the current control over Yemen, but like there's several groups that control the different bits of territory and Sunnah, the capital is under the control of the Houthi rebels, not the Yemeni government.

Yes, if she's there, then the justice system is the Houthis' justice system.

Okay,

so what happens to her now?

Is it just a matter of time before she's executed?

No.

So because we're dealing with Yemen, we're not dealing with perhaps the United States, which also has capital punishment, but does not operate with Islamic law.

So under Sharia law, there is this concept, which we in English would call blood money, but in Arabic is called diya.

And so basically, there is the option to negotiate with the family of the person that you have killed and pay them compensation.

And so the concept arose years and years and years ago basically to stop revenge killings between warring tribes.

So if I killed someone in your tribe, you would kill someone in my tribe and we would just keep going.

So they came up with this concept of DIA, where basically you would pay money as compensation and you would secure a pardon.

And then that way we would end it there.

They are trying to negotiate with the family of Mr.

Mahdi, this man who she has killed.

So Subhash Chandran, this lawyer who I've been speaking to, who's working as part of of the Save Namesha Priya International Action Council, which is this group of lawyers and advocates and human rights workers, they are trying to orchestrate that remotely from India.

They can't travel to Yemen.

They had arranged at one point an intermediary who is meant to go and coordinate the negotiations with local tribal leaders, with the family, at a cost of 40,000 US dollars.

Money has been raised and sent in two instalments,

but he alleges that when that second instalment of money, so the total 40 grand has been paid, that this intermediary left the WhatsApp group.

No!

So he's run away with the money.

Oh my goodness, this is such a nightmare.

Okay, so say that they somehow figure out a way to get the money to where it needs to go.

Does that just mean that she can leave?

The way that it works is that this act of paying blood money and a potential pardon for the family, that is seen as the last step in the process that the judiciary has to respect.

The family gets the final say.

So if they say, yes, we accept this compensation and we don't want her to be executed, then she doesn't get executed.

It doesn't necessarily mean that she gets to walk out of jail that day.

Right.

There are different ways it can go.

There is the potential for you still have to serve some sort of sentence.

There is still a punishment for you.

A separate lawyer, an Australian lawyer who I spoke to, Daniel Pasco, who specialises in researching Islamic law, he is understanding that in Yemen it would be 15 years, and she's already served about half of that.

So I think in this case, that's probably the best outcome that they're going to get.

She finishes this 15-year sentence, and she does not get executed.

Would this be the case if she was under the jurisdiction of the actual Yemeni government?

Or is this blood money option only available to her because she is in the Houthi-controlled part of Yemen?

No, that is how it works in Yemen.

Oh, okay.

So that is Yemeni law.

That is not specific to the Houthis, okay?

Yes, it's not specific to the Houthis.

It's how it works there.

It's how it works in other similar countries.

It's how it works in Saudi Arabia.

There was actually a case back in the 90s of an Australian woman who was murdered in Saudi Arabia by her colleagues who were British.

None of them are Saudi citizens, but they just happen to be in the country.

And her brother ended up accepting a payment of £750,000 British pounds.

And he pardoned her colleagues who'd murdered her, and they weren't executed.

I think one of the interesting things about this story, at least for me, I would hazard a guess that many Australians would find the concept of forgiving the person who has murdered their husband, their son, their brother, their aunt, their uncle, their loved one.

When someone has done that to you is just not something you would ever entertain.

But as I was researching this story and I was speaking to Daniel Pascoe from City University in Hong Kong, who researches Islamic law, he said, the Islamic religion encourages forgiveness.

And often the position of these states is not that they actually want the execution to go ahead, but in the end, if it does actually get to the point where these families are negotiating, the government's position is actually, yeah, we do want you to pardon them and to let this person not be executed, which I just found fascinating because I think it would probably be potentially quite a different way to how a lot of us as Australians would think if that happened to us.

Aaron Powell, it's extraordinary sometimes watching American criminal cases, murder cases, where they're pursuing the death penalty.

And they often seem really disappointed when they don't secure it and they get life in prison instead.

But it's never something that we will, okay, let's go through the process of figuring out a way to compensate and forgive.

But then again, I suppose the concerning part is that in a modern society where money is such a significant thing and where we have international currency trade, it will ultimately come down to a dollar figure.

And it's almost like you're buying forgiveness rather than seeking it and having it given to you.

And how do you put a price on a life?

How much will it cost?

Hi, it's Matt here from The Present.

We actually recorded that chat with Ellie a little while ago and there have been a couple of developments in Namesha Priya's case since we first spoke.

So Ellie is here to give us an update.

G'day Ellie.

Hi Matt again.

Nice to see you.

Hi again.

Last time we spoke, Namesha Priya's supporters back in India were trying to negotiate this blood money payment.

And then last month it was announced that an execution date had been set.

Can you tell me about that?

Yeah, so it was a bit of a brood shock, I guess, for people that have kind of been covering this story.

In early July, Indian media reported that the execution date had been set, and it was announced for the following week.

So it really didn't seem like there was much.

time left.

You know, it really shocked her family and her supporters.

But when I read it, I also was kind of taking it with a grain of salt, that story, because it had referred to Yemen's president approving the execution, which, as we know, and we spoke about last time, it's the Houthis who control the area where she is.

So it was sort of a question mark about, you know, whether it was legit or not.

But I got back in touch with Subhash Chandran, one of the lawyers that's sort of helping as part of a group to try and get her off death row.

And he said that the execution date was postponed until further orders and that they had more time for blood money negotiations.

So that sort of contradicted that story and that was obviously great.

And then a few more weeks go by and yes, there are media reports coming out saying that the execution now has not just been postponed, but it's been officially cancelled.

Totally called off.

Whoa.

So sort of within this one month space in July, we have all these things bouncing around, right?

Execution date is set.

Suddenly it's maybe not set.

Suddenly it's postponed and suddenly it's not.

Okay.

Well, that's great.

It's great news.

And so the key reason that it now appeared that the execution itself had been cancelled was because the Grand Mufti of India, so the most senior Sunni Muslim in the country, had gotten involved in negotiations because it wasn't really working at a diplomatic level, obviously relationships there between he as a Muslim and this Muslim-majority country, Yemen, so he gets involved.

All looks great.

Then another story comes out, another conflicting media report from a different source.

This was quoting the government.

Information being circulated by certain individuals regarding the Namisha Priya case is inaccurate and does not reflect the current status of the matter.

So then I just went back to total confusion.

I thought I have no idea what's happening.

Okay, so we went from negotiations are underway to execution imminent to execution permanently called off to that was wrong.

Stand by for further insane information.

Correct, correct.

Okay.

Would you like the further insane information?

I would, I would.

I was going to say, does the Grand Mufti's intervention make it any more likely that they'll be able to negotiate this blood money payment and get her released?

The update is good.

And the news is, is that that update that the Grand Mufti had gotten involved and the death sentence was off is true.

It's off.

Right.

Yes.

So his office, his representatives, along with this group of lawyers, were the ones leading the charge with the negotiations.

How they pulled it off is obviously the Grand Mufti has many, many contacts in Yemen influential scholars, including one particular man whose name is Sheikh Alabib Umar bin Hafiz, and he's a world leading Muslim academic.

I actually was researching about him.

So Georgetown University releases this list every year of the most influential Muslims in the world.

And he's been in the top 50 every year since 2009.

The hot 50 Muslims.

Fantastic.

Okay.

Yes.

So he's extremely influential.

And so basically the Grand Mufti of India and he together were kind of able to finally make contact with the family of Talal Abdo-Mahdi because it just really wasn't working trying to get them on board to even start talking, let alone, you know, actually negotiating.

So now we're here where the execution is off, but they're sort of still waiting for official papers for it to be, you know, authorized, officially announced, and also to then be communicated officially back to the Indian government all right I guess watch that space for potentially more good news fingers crossed potentially it doesn't necessarily mean that everything is over it doesn't necessarily mean that Namisha Priya is gonna you know walk free from jail and get back on a plane to Kerala just because capital punishment's off the table doesn't mean punishment full stop is off her team's arguing that she should come back given that you know she's already been in jail for about eight years but obviously there are people in Yemen arguing well you know she should still serve a full murder sentence so few remaining question marks but on the whole great news and then on the blood money aspect they haven't had to pay any money yet but it still is a possibility the negotiations are kind of still ongoing so if the family decides to demand blood money then they will have to go down that avenue okay fascinating a wild ride It has been a wild ride.

I mean, everything about this story is incredible, but my favorite revelation revelation is that there's like a top 50 countdown of Muslim clerics.

Like, I wonder if there's sort of campaigns to try and get on there.

Do they do a countdown?

I'm not sure.

You have to self-nominate or whether it's a text in 55 cents to cast your vote.

I'm not sure.

Should they announce it, you know, on an afternoon eve, you know, do a countdown, top 50?

I think that'd be great.

Ellie, thank you so much for giving us this update and staying across this incredible story and telling us all about it.

No, you're welcome, Matt.

And I'm glad that it has seemingly ended on a positive note.

We'll see.

Thanks so much.

Thanks, Matt.

There's a lot of people digging into incredible stories here at the ABC, and we are keen to bring them to you as regularly as we can.

This is actually just a message to my colleagues.

If you've got a crazy side quest story that you can't stop thinking about and you want to tell us, you know where to find us.

If anyone else needs to find us, you can email if you're listening at abc.net.au.

I'll catch you Thursday, where we'll be looking into the origins of the two-state solution.