The Indian government has said that reports claiming the cancellation of Nimisha Priya’s death sentence in Yemen are not true.
On Monday, the office of Grand Mufti of India Kanthapuram AP Abubakar Musliyar claimed that Priya's sentence had been officially cancelled after a high-level meeting in Sanaa, the capital of Yemen. The statement said the earlier suspension of the execution had now become a permanent cancellation.
However, sources in the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said this information is inaccurate. "Some people are sharing wrong information about the Nimisha Priya case," MEA officials
Even the Grand Mufti’s office later admitted that they have not received any official written confirmation from the Yemeni government yet.
Nimisha Priya, a 38-year-old nurse from Palakkad, Kerala, moved to Yemen in 2008 for work. She later went into business with a Yemeni man named Talal Abdo Mahdi, and they ran a clinic together in Sanaa.
Their relationship reportedly turned abusive. Mahdi allegedly harassed her, took her passport, and falsely claimed to be her husband. Unable to return to India, Nimisha reportedly tried to sedate him in 2017 to get her passport back. But things went terribly wrong when Mahdi died of what’s believed to be a drug overdose.
Nimisha was arrested soon after and was convicted of murder in 2018. In 2020, a Yemeni court sentenced her to death.
Her case has received major attention both in India and internationally. In late 2024 and early 2025, both Yemeni President Rashad al-Alimi and Houthi leader Mahdi al-Mashat approved her execution. She was set to be hanged on July 16, 2025.
Despite claims from the Grand Mufti’s office that Nimisha Priya's death sentence has been cancelled, the Indian government says this is not confirmed. Official sources stress that no written notice has come from the Yemeni authorities. For now, her case remains unresolved, and her life hangs in the balance as India continues diplomatic efforts.
Source: India Today