Sudanese free woman convicted of apostasy
LONDON — The Sudanese woman sentenced to death for apostasy while pregnant has been freed and was reunited with her family Monday after spending six months behind bars.
Meriam I brahim, 27, walked out of prison in Khartoum Monday afternoon and was taken to an undisclosed safe house for her own protection.
In Sudan, where Islamic law is implemented, leaving the faith is a crime punishable by death — and earlier this month Ibrahim’s own brother called for the sentence to be carried out.
“Her family had been threatened before and we are worried that someone might try to harm her,” said Mohamed Mostafa, one of her team of lawyers.
Her release was announced by Sudanese state media, which said that the supreme court had overturned the verdict and she was to be freed.
As soon as he heard the news on the radio, Elshareef A li Mohammed, another of her lawyers, rushed to the Omdurman women’s prison to see if it were true.
Hopes of her release had been raised then dashed before: a similar claim, on May 31, quickly proved false.
“We are going to the prison now to find out more details,” said Elshareef. “We heard it just now on the state radio. We really hope it’s true.”
Ibrahim’s case was first highlighted when she was sentenced on May 15.
She had been detained since December and the court in Khartoum had ruled that she should receive 100 lashes for “adultery” — because it did not recognize her Christian marriage to the American citizen Daniel Wani — and then be hanged for refusing to “return” to Islam. But Ibrahim, who was born in eastern Sudan, close to the Ethiopian border, told the court that she had been raised a Christian, by her Ethiopian Christian mother. Her Muslim father left the family when she was six.
Less than two weeks after she was sentenced, she gave birth to a daughter, Maya — with the authorities keeping her legs shackled for the birth. Her son, Martin, almost two, was also in prison with her.
The judge ru led that Ibrahim would not be executed for two years after the birth of the baby — but her husband and legal team were desperately hoping that the verdict would be overruled before then. He said she was refusing to recant her Christian beliefs — despite the death sentence.
The case caused outrage around the world. British Prime Minister David Cameron, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and former First Lady of the United States Hillary Clinton, who is also a former secretary of state, all called for her release, and a petition to secure her freedom gathered more than 700,000 signatures.
The court is due to confirm Ibrahim’s official release Tuesday. Her next move is not clear.
Her husband, who lives in the town of Manchester in New Hampshire, had been trying to secure his wife’s move to the United States when she was imprisoned.
Last week he said that the family would leave Sudan as soon as she was free.
Ibrahim was the head of a series of successful small businesses in Sudan — and some even suggested that she could have been denounced to the authorities as part of a plot to gain control over her affairs.