Woman freed from death row charged as she tries to enter US

A Christian convert who was trying to fly to the United States with her family after being released from death row has been charged on two criminal counts after trying to leave Sudan, her legal team said.

Meriam Ibrahim, who was detained with her American husband, Daniel Wani, and their two children at an airport in Khartoum on Tuesday, is accused of travelling with falsified documents and giving false information, according to her legal team.

She could face up to seven years in prison if convicted.

Sudan has summoned the US and South Sudanese ambassadors over the new detention of Ibrahim.

The woman was freed on Monday after an appeals court cancelled the death sentence imposed for having converted from Islam to marry her Christian husband, after the government came under what it called unprecedented international pressure.

But she was detained again on Tuesday for trying to use documents issued by the embassy of South Sudan to fly out of Khartoum with her husband and their two children — deepening the diplomatic wrangle over her case.

Sudan does not recognise her as a South Sudanese citizen because, despite lifting her sentence, it does not recognise her marriage to a Christian, something not allowed under the Islamic laws applied in Sudan, where most people are Sunni Muslims.

South Sudan, with a majority Christian population, became independent from Sudan after a public vote in 2011 that ended years of civil war between the two states.

“The airport passport police arrested her after she presented emergency travel documents issued by the South Sudanese embassy and carrying an American visa,” Sudan’s National Intelligence and Security Services’ media department said on Facebook.

Her lawyer, Mohaned Mostafa, said Ibrahim was charged with forging the travel papers and faces seven years in prison.