Posted on 06/25/2014 5:37:33 AM PDT by wtd
Released Sudanese Christian woman charged
A Sudanese Christian woman who was sentenced to die for refusing to renounce her faith -- and then released -- has been charged on two criminal counts after trying to leave the African country for the United States, her legal team said Wednesday.
Meriam Yehya Ibrahim, who was detained with her American husband, Daniel Wani, and their two children at an airport in Khartoum on Tuesday, is accused of traveling with falsified documents and giving false information, according to her legal team.
The family is currently being held in a Khartoum police station and has been refused bail.
Ibrahim's legal team told CNN that Daniel Wani is being held as an accessory.
The family was stopped at the airport after what Ibrahim's lawyers described Tuesday as an alleged "irregularity with her documentation."
Ibrahim has a U.S. visa and was headed to the United States with her family, her legal team said.
The U.S. State Department said Tuesday that Ibrahim and her family had been "temporarily detained at the airport" for questioning over issues relating to their travel and documentation.
"They have not been arrested. The government has assured us of their safety," U.S. State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said then.
Harf said that the U.S. Embassy "has been and will remain highly involved in working with the family and the government," saying "we are engaging directly with Sudanese officials to secure their safe and swift departure from Sudan."
Sudanese authorities said Ibrahim had been detained because of the documents she submitted.
Sudan's National Intelligence and Security Services said that she had South Sudanese travel documents, despite not being a citizen of South Sudan, and she was heading to the United States, which is not her native country.
"This was considered illegal by the Sudanese authorities, who have summoned both the U.S. and South Sudanese ambassadors," the agency said in a message posted on its media Facebook page early Wednesday.
The airport detention came a day after Ibrahim's legal team announced the 27-year-old woman had been released from prison after weeks of international controversy over her conviction on apostasy and adultery charges.
According to her lawyer, the case began when one of Ibrahim's relatives, a Muslim, filed a criminal complaint saying her family was shocked to find out she had married Wani, a Christian, after she was missing for several years.
The Sudanese court considered Ibrahim a Muslim because her father was Muslim, but she said she was a Christian and never practiced Islam. 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 what was alleged to be her original faith.
SUDAN — A Sudanese Christian woman who was sentenced to die for refusing to renounce her faith — and then released — has been charged on two criminal counts after trying to leave the African country for the United States, her legal team said Wednesday.
A diplomatic spat escalated Wednesday as Sudan summoned the US ambassador over Washington’s attempts to assist a mother who had been sentenced to death for refusing to denounce Christianity.
Meriam Ibrahim, 27, was freed from death row on Monday but just one day later Sudan’s National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) re-arrested her at Khartoum’s airport. The NISS, a shadowy and feared institution, said on its Facebook page that Ibrahim and her family had been attempting to travel to the US with documents from the embassy of South Sudan, which split from its northern neighbor in 2011 after years of civil war. It said she was carrying a US visa, and that her attempts to use the documents were considered a “criminal offense.”
Ibrahim’s husband, Daniel Wani, is a naturalized US citizen who said upon his wife’s release that he wanted to start a new life in the US. The State Department said Tuesday that officials were working with the Sudanese government “to secure [the family's] safe and swift departure from Sudan.” However, Ibrahim’s lawyer Elshareef Ali Mohammed told NBC News Wednesday that she had been transferred from NISS to police detention.
They probably handed her the documents and told her to use them...
Can we just crater Mecca and get it over with?
That’s what bearded savages do.
Did that soldier released in Afghanistan have to go through customs in Kabul? Did the Gitmo Five have to go through customs in Cuba?
I’ll tell you two phrases to listen for to detect absolute weapons-grads BS.
Number One: “Working with...” How? Doing what, exactly? Is a resolution likely? The State Department is “working with” -—and is completely powerless to DO anything even IF they decoded they wanted to. This family will be abandoned to the fates.
Number Two: “Monitoring” In other words, “we aren’t doing anything, but we’ve got the big flat screens all loaded up and patched into various simulacrums and impressive-looking analytical displays — BUT, we aren’t actually DOING anything, and most likely won’t until it’s much too late.
They need a visit from a drone —
Sudanese Christian still under police questioning
Khartoum: A Sudanese Christian woman remained under investigation by Khartoum police on Wednesday, her lawyer said, a day after she was stopped trying to leave Sudan following annulment of her apostasy death sentence.
Meriam Yahia Ibrahim Ishag, 26, is not under arrest but is being questioned at a police station over the authenticity of an emergency travel document issued by South Sudan, the lawyer Mohanad Mustafa told AFP.
The government officials and waiting for a little something to grease the skids.
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