Sudanese Christian Meriam Ibrahim Released from Custody after Being Arrested Yesterday for Trying to Flee Country: US Working to Help Family Leave Sudan

Teresa Neumann : Jun 25, 2014
Jeremy Reynalds - Assist News Service

Ibrahim and her family have reportedly been re-released after being arrested yesterday trying to flee Sudan. The US government is said to be actively involved in getting the family out of the country.

(Khartoum, Sudan)—The US says it is working with Sudan to ensure Meriam Ibrahim, recently freed from death row, can leave the country with her family after 40 security agents at Khartoum airport took them into custody yesterday as they tried to flee Sudan.

According to the most recent update by the BBC, Meriam Ibrahim was "released again after being briefly detained with her family at Khartoum airport."

Said Marie Harf of the US State Department, "They were temporarily detained for several hours over questions related to their documents."

It is thought the Ibrahims were trying to fly to the US.

Meriam was sentenced in May to hang for renouncing Islam - sparking an outcry—but was released from jail on Monday.

Ibrahim's husband is a Christian from South Sudan.

Security agents detained Ibrahim, her husband Daniel Wani and their two children at the airport on Tuesday, her lawyer, Thabit Suliman, said.
Earlier, a top Sudanese official told the BBC that although Ibrahim is Sudanese, she was using emergency South Sudanese papers with a US visa.

According to a story by Philip Sherwell, Hannah Strange and Harriet Alexander for The Daily Telegraph, they were initially thought to be planning to fly to South Sudan—the birthplace of Wani and now an independent country—as their paperwork to travel to the United States was still being processed.

The Telegraph said Ibrahim and her family were taken to the airport in a US vehicle accompanied by American diplomats after South Sudan issued emergency travel paperwork for them. But the security officials at the airport apparently found problems with the documents.

Wani is an American citizen and supporters of the family, backed by the senators from his state of New Hampshire, have urged the US to grant a visa to Ibrahim and citizenship to their two children.