Sudanese Christian Woman Rearrested, Legal Team Says

A Sudanese Christian woman who’d been sentenced to die for refusing to renounce her faith — and then released– was rearrested Tuesday at an airport as she was trying to leave the African country, her legal team told CNN on Tuesday.
Meriam Yehya Ibrahim, 27, her American husband, Daniel Wani, and their two children were stopped at an airport in Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, and then detained and interrogated at Khartoum’s national security headquarters, the legal team said.
Details about why the family was held weren’t immediately available.

Wani, in a phone call to CNN, also said that he and his family were being held at the national security office, but did not provide details.
The developments come a day after Ibrahim’s legal team announced she’d been released from prison after weeks of international controversy over her conviction on apostasy and adultery charges.
They also come as a man claiming to be Ibrahim’s brother spoke of seeking retribution, claiming that Christians had tarnished his Islamic family’s honor through the case.

The case began when one of Ibrahim’s relatives, a Muslim, filed a criminal complaint saying her family was shocked to find out Ibrahim had married Wani, a Christian, after she was missing for several years, according to her lawyer.
The court considered Ibrahim a Muslim because her father was Muslim, but she proclaimed to be a Christian. So she was charged with adultery, because a Muslim woman’s marriage to a Christian man is illegal in Sudan, and with apostasy, accused of illegally renouncing her original faith.
Authorities warned her to renounce Christianity by May 15, but she did not. She was convicted and sentenced last month to suffer 100 lashes and then be hanged.

Ibrahim said her mother, an Ethiopian Orthodox Christian, raised her as a Christian, with Ibrahim’s Sudanese Muslim father abandoning her when she was 6.
“I am a Christian,” she said during her sentencing hearing last month, “and I will remain a Christian.”‘
After her sentence drew international condemnation from rights groups and foreign embassies in Khartoum — including those of the United States, United Kingdom and Canada — an appeals court this month ruled that the judgment against her was faulty, and she was released, according to her lawyer.

She gave birth to her second child — a girl — in prison last month. Her first child, a 1-year-old son, stayed with her at the prison but was free to leave at any time, according to her lawyer.
On Tuesday, a man who says he is Ibrahim’s brother, Al-Samani Al-Hadi, slammed the appellate court’s decision and talked of vengeance.
“The family is unconvinced by the court’s decision. We were not informed by the court that she was to be released; this came as a surprise to us,” said Al-Hadi. “The law has failed to uphold our rights.
“This is now an issue of honor. The Christians have tarnished our honor, and we will know how to avenge it.”
In court, Ibrahim denied being related to Al-Hadi.
Al-Hadi did not comment on Ibrahim’s detention Tuesday.
Sudanese Parliament speaker Fatih Izz Al-Deen defended the conviction last month, insisting that claims that Ibrahim was raised as non-Muslim are untrue. She was raised in an Islamic environment, Al-Deen said.

Woman’s ‘brother’ says she should repent