The family of Meriam Ibrahim, a Sudanese woman sentenced to death on false charges of apostasy, is still being detained in Sudan because her own relatives have brought new charges against her.
Fox News is reporting that Ibrahim, her husband Daniel Wani, and their two children are currently staying at the U.S. Embassy in Khartoum after being detained on their way out of the country due to a discrepancy about her travel documents.
Fox has now learned that while waiting for new travel documents to be issued, her Muslim relatives are pressing new charges.
“There are new charges relating to her relationship to her father,” said the source to Fox. “Possibly to prove that she is Muslim, but nothing has been served so it’s unclear.”
These relatives, who are members of her father’s family, brought the original charges against Meriam that landed her in a prison for more than nine months while facing a death sentence for alleged apostasy to Christianity. The family contends that she was born a Muslim and produced a document saying that she was given a Muslim name, “Afdal”, at birth, before she changed it to Meriam. Her attorney claims the document is fake.
Daniel’s legal team believes that the relatives brought the charges in order to get their hands on Meriam’s successful business in Sudan. Had she been executed as planned, her Muslim family members would have inherited her holdings.
The family was furious when she was released from prison and claimed that she was “kidnapped” by her illegitimate husband Daniel and should have been released into their custody. Meriam’s brother, Al Samani Al Hadi Mohamed Abdullah, has also called for his sister’s execution if she refuses to convert to Islam.
“Our family is not convinced by the decision of the court,” Abdullah said in a recent interview. “The law has failed to maintain our rights, and now it is a matter of honor. Christians deface our honor, and we know how to take revenge for that.”
These relatives have now filed new charges in a Sudanese family court. A July 3 trial date has been set.
Even in the face of death, Meriam has never wavered in her allegiance to Christ or the fact that she was raised Christian by her Ethiopian Christian mother because her Muslim father abandoned the family when she was a child.
“I was never a Muslim,” she told the Sudanese high court during her apostasy trial. “I was raised a Christian from the start.”
As Fox explains, Sudan’s penal code criminalizes the conversion of Muslims to other religions, which is punishable by death. Muslim women are not permitted to marry non-Muslim men, although Muslim men are permitted to marry outside the faith. All children must follow the father’s religion.
The U.S. State Department is confirming that Sudan is indeed holding Meriam due to travel document discrepancies. If these documents are deemed to contain false information about her religion, it could constitute a criminal violation and she could once again find herself in jail.
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