‘Nothing much the govt can do’: Centre tells SC on Nimisha Priya’s execution in Yemen

New Delhi, July 14 (IANS) The Centre on Monday told the Supreme Court that “there is nothing much the government can do” to save Kerala nurse Nimisha Priya from execution in Yemen.  

Appearing before a Bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta, Attorney General of India R. Venkataramani, the highest law officer of the Centre, submitted, “There is nothing much the government can do! Looking at the sensitivity of Yemen, the country is not diplomatically recognised. There is a point till which the Government of India can go, and we have reached that.”

The Attorney General (AG) said that the Union government did not want to complicate the situation by going public and was taking “utmost possible efforts” to rescue the Indian national from the gallows.

He added that a request was also forwarded to Yemeni prosecution authorities to suspend the execution of the sentence, but it yielded no positive results.

“We got an informal communication that execution would be put in abeyance, but we do not know if it will work out,” AG Venkataramani said.

The Justice Nath-led Bench was dealing with a plea filed by 'Save Nimisha Priya Action Council' seeking directions to the Union Ministry of External Affairs to use diplomatic channels to stall Nimisha Priya’s execution.

The plea, referring to Sharia law, stated that the death penalty could be negotiated with the payment of 'diya (blood money)' to the victim's family.

Indian national Nimisha Priya, who has been sentenced to death for the murder of a Yemeni national, Talal Abdo Mehd, has been in prison for the last three years. According to media reports, she is tentatively set to be executed on Wednesday, following the approval of the Yemeni President Rashad al-Alimi.

Expressing its inability to pass an order to prevent execution in a foreign nation, the Supreme Court has posted the matter for the next hearing on July 18 and asked the Centre to file a fresh status report on the date fixed.

Meanwhile, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has appealed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to “intervene with the authorities concerned” to save Nimisha Priya’s life.

The mother of Priya, Prema Kumari (57), has been tirelessly campaigning to secure a waiver of the death penalty. She has also travelled to Sanaa to negotiate the payment of blood money to the victim's family. Her efforts have been supported by the Save Nimisha Priya International Action Council, a group of NRI social workers based in Yemen.

--IANS

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