LONDON, Dec. 3 -- Sudan's president on Monday pardoned a British school teacher sentenced to two weeks in jail for allowing her students to name a teddy bear Muhammad, ending a delicate diplomatic tangle with what Prime Minister Gordon Brown called a victory for "common sense."
President Omar al-Bashir pardoned Gillian Gibbons, 54, of Liverpool, after meeting with two Muslim members of Britain's House of Lords, Nazir Ahmed and Sayeeda Warsi, who had traveled to the predominantly Muslim African nation to lobby for her release.
"This is a case which is unfortunate, unintentional, innocent misunderstanding," Ahmed told reporters in Khartoum after the decision was announced. He said Gibbons was to be released Monday.
Gibbons's case caused international outrage and strained relations between Britain and Sudan, whose government is under intense international pressure over the crisis in Sudan's Darfur region. Government officials and many British Muslim leaders said they believed Sudan's prosecution of Gibbons was a reaction to that pressure, particularly the upcoming arrival of a U.N.-backed peacekeeping force in Darfur...
This from the Washington Post.
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