Sudanese mother freed from death sentence for marrying a Christian is now charged with fraud and BANNED from leaving the country as campaigners slam State Department for ‘shameful’ attempt to help her
- Meriam Ibrahim was due to be executed for converting to Christianity
- Mother-of-two was freed on Monday after nine months in jail
The Sudanese woman who was sentenced to death for being a Christian has been released from her latest detention but has been charged with new crimes, MailOnline can reveal. Meriam Ibrahim has been accused of falsifying travel documents as she tried to leave the African country hours after the death penalty was dropped against her. It is understood that the authorities told her she should have used the Muslim name she had when she was born, not the Christian name she uses after choosing to worship that faith.
The Sudanese woman who was sentenced to death for being a Christian has been released from her latest detention but has been charged with new crimes, MailOnline can reveal. Meriam Ibrahim has been accused of falsifying travel documents as she tried to leave the African country hours after the death penalty was dropped against her. It is understood that the authorities told her she should have used the Muslim name she had when she was born, not the Christian name she uses after choosing to worship that faith. It is not clear if her husband Daniel Wani, who is from Manchester in New Hampshire, has also been charged with any offenses.The new allegations are a huge setback to Meriam’s hopes of leaving Sudan and a further sign that the Sudanese government is playing twisted games over her release.
It came as campaigners working to free the mother-of-two attacked the U.S. Department of State for its ‘shameful’ response to helping her. Tina Ramirez, founder of religious freedom organization Hardwired, called for Congress to investigate the ‘incredibly negligent’ handling of Meriam Ibrahim’s case. The following day, Tuesday, on what should have been her first full day of freedom, she instead found herself back in custody. In an interview with MailOnline, Ramirez said that the State Department had been aware of Daniel and Meriam’s case since 2011 when they first married. In September last year, when Meriam, 27, was first arrested, Daniel went to the U.S. embassy in Sudan three times but was told that the ambassador was too busy to see him. Ramirez said: ‘The US government should have coordinated with the government of Sudan to get them out of the country. This is sloppy. ‘They have had three years to sort this out and whenever Daniel has gone to the U.S. embassy in Sudan for help they have refused. ‘I think that Congress should be investigating what happened here. ‘The US says that it cares about human rights issues and this is something they should be caring about. It’s a total failure, it’s shameful.’ Ramirez said it was a ‘good question’ as to why U.S. officials on the ground did not put Meriam and Daniel on their plane and make sure they were able to leave. She likened it to the fiasco over the Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng, who sparked a tense diplomatic row when America granted him asylum after he took refuge in the American embassy in Beijing, and said that America ‘should have learned its lesson’. Ramirez said: ‘The State Department have been so incredibly negligent over this.’ When they got to the airport in Khartoum, a confrontation ensued between the group, their lawyers and about 40 members of the feared Sudanese security police. At her daily press briefing on Tuesday, State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf confirmed that Meriam, Daniel and their children were detained due to ‘issues related to their travel’. She said that they had not been arrested and that the Sudanese government ‘has assured us of their safety’. She said: ‘The State Department is engaging directly with Sudanese officials to secure their safe and swift departure from Sudan.’
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