FEATURED POST

California | San Quentin begins prison reform - but not for those on death row

Image
California is transferring everyone on death row at San Quentin prison to other places, as it tries to reinvent the state's most notorious facility as a rehabilitation centre. Many in this group will now have new freedoms. But they are also asking why they've been excluded from the reform - and whether they'll be safe in new prisons. Keith Doolin still remembers the day in 2019 when workers came to dismantle one of the United States' most infamous death chambers.

Sudanese Christian woman who once faced death penalty arrives in U.S.

Mariam Ibrahim and her husband
(CNN) -- A Sudanese Christian woman once sentenced to death in her native country because of her faith arrived in her new home, the United States, on Thursday.

Mariam Yehya Ibrahim, her husband and two young children were greeted by a large crowd of supporters at Manchester-Boston Regional Airport in New Hampshire. Ibrahim, whose sentence was overturned a few weeks ago, didn't speak with the media.

Ibrahim's ordeal started when a Muslim relative filed a criminal complaint saying she had married Daniel Wani, a Christian, after going missing for several years. A Sudanese court considered Ibrahim a Muslim because her father was Muslim.

She was charged with adultery on grounds that a Muslim woman's marriage to a Christian man is illegal in Sudan. Ibrahim also was charged with apostasy, accused of illegally renouncing what was alleged to be her original faith.

She was convicted in May, while about eight months pregnant. In chains, Ibrahim gave birth about two weeks later in a women's hospital in Khartoum.

Ibrahim had been detained since mid-January. She refused to let go of her 20-month-old son, Martin, for fear she would never see him again.

Ibrahim was born to a Sudanese Muslim father and an Ethiopian Orthodox mother. Her father left when she was 6 years old. She was raised by her mother as a Christian.

A court in Sudan overturned Ibrahim's death sentence a few weeks ago, but police arrested her again June 24 when she and her family tried to leave Sudan to go to the United States. Wani is an American citizen who has lived in Manchester since 1998.

Police accused her of falsifying travel documents in an attempt to fly to the United States with her family. They were taken into custody at the airport in the capital, Khartoum.

The family had been confined to a safe house in Sudan until last week, when they traveled to Italy.


Source: CNN, August 1, 2014

Most Viewed (Last 7 Days)

‘A Short Film About Killing’: The movie that brought an end to the Polish death penalty

California | San Quentin begins prison reform - but not for those on death row

Bali | British grandmother on death row for more than 10 years for drug smuggling given ‘one final hope of escape'

Congo reinstates death penalty after 20-year hiatus

Georgia Court Case Tests the Limits of Execution Secrecy in the United States

Georgia | Death penalty trial for accused Atlanta spa shooter in limbo

Iran | Man executed in Qazvin

USA | Journalist Recalls Witnessing an Execution and Describes the Importance of Media Witnesses: Op-Ed

Malaysia | Death sentence commuted for ex-cop who killed toddler, babysitter