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Meriam Ibrahim freed again after rearrest at Sudan airport Meriam Ibrahim freed again after rearrest at Sudan airport
(about 7 hours later)
A Sudanese Christian woman whose death sentence for apostasy was overturned has been freed again after being detained on accusations of forging travel documents. Meriam Ibrahim, the Christian woman released from death row in Sudan, was freed again on Thursday on condition she remains in the country, according to her lawyer, Mohaned Mostafa.
Eman Abdul-Rahman, the lawyer for 27-year-old Meriam Ibrahim, said she had been released from a police station after foreign diplomats pressed the government to free her. She was detained along with her husband and two small children, one born behind bars, at Khartoum's airport on Tuesday while trying to leave the country with her family. Ibrahim, 27, had been detained with her husband and two young children at Khartoum airport on Tuesday – over allegations she had forged travel documents – as the family tried to leave the country for the US. But she was discharged from a police station after the government came under pressure from foreign diplomats.
Ibrahim, whose father was Muslim but who was raised by her Christian mother, was convicted of apostasy for marrying a Christian man from southern Sudan in a church ceremony in 2011. As in many Muslim nations, Muslim women in Sudan are prohibited from marrying non-Muslims, though Muslim men can marry outside their faith. By law, children must follow their father's religion. Ibrahim, whose father was Muslim but who was raised by her Christian mother, was last month convicted of apostasy and sentenced to hang. She was also sentenced to 100 lashes for adultery after a court ruled her marriage to a Christian man was invalid. Under Sudan's penal code Muslims are forbidden from changing faith, and Muslim women are not permitted to marry Christian men. Ibrahim insisted she had been brought up as a Christian.
Sudan's penal code forbids Muslims from converting to other religions, a crime punishable by death. The case prompted outrage, with more than a million people backing Amnesty International's campaign for her release.
The sentence drew international condemnation, with Amnesty International calling it abhorrent. The US state department said it was "deeply disturbed" by the sentence and called on the Sudanese government to respect religious freedoms. On Monday the appeal court annulled her death sentence and freed her, after which she immediately went into hiding because of death threats.
On Monday, Sudan's court of cassation threw out Ibrahim's death sentence and freed her after a presentation by her legal team. Her husband, Daniel Wani, a United States citizen since 2005, said he hoped the family could start a new life in America. But 24 hours later security service agents apprehended the family, including a baby girl born while Ibrahim was shackled in her cell, claiming that her travel documents were forged. Ibrahim's lawyer, Elshareef Mohammed, said more than 40 security officers stopped them boarding a plane to Washington.
The US state department said its envoy then met Sudanese foreign ministry officials at their request and told them the family needed to be able "to depart as swiftly as possible from Sudan and that we are happy to help in any way we can".
Wani has claimed that those who triggered the case against his wife, whom he married in 2011, were attempting to muscle in on her business interests, including a hair salon, mini-mart and agricultural land.