Adviser says British teacher in Sudan pardoned

KHARTOUM - A British teacher jailed in Sudan for allowing her students to name a teddy bear Mohammad has been pardoned, a Sudanese presidential adviser said on Monday.

A source in a British parliamentary delegation said the teacher, Gillian Gibbons, was expected to be released on Monday.

Asked whether Gibbons had been pardoned, the adviser told Reuters by telephone from inside a meeting with Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir: "Definitely, yes."

The news came as two leading British Muslims met the Sudanese president in an attempt to secure an early release for Gibbons, who was sentenced on Thursday to 15 days in jail for insulting Islam to be followed by deportation.

The two British peers, Lord Ahmed and Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, had launched a private initiative to secure Gibbons' early release. The peers delayed their departure after Bashir confirmed a last-minute meeting following a two-day wait.

Gibbons let her pupils at Khartoum's private Unity High School pick their favourite name for a teddy bear as part of a project on animals in September. Twenty out of 23 of them chose Mohammad -- a popular boy's name in Sudan, as well as the name of Islam's Prophet.

Sudan's influential Council of Muslim Scholars on Sunday urged the government not to pardon Gibbons, saying it would damage Khartoum's reputation with Muslims around the world.

Hundreds took to the streets of the capital on Friday, many waving swords and Islamic flags, calling for her death.

"Retracting this light sentence ... would wound the sensibilities of the Muslims in Sudan," Council Spokesman al-Sheikh Mohammad Abdel Karim told Reuters.

"This is not a matter to be settled politically. This is a matter which goes to the very core of Muslims and their sensibilities."

But many ordinary Sudanese said they thought it was an innocent mistake which could be forgiven after an apology.

Britain's ambassador to Sudan, Rosalind Marsden, saw Gibbons on Sunday and said she was in high spirits.

Her lawyer said Gibbons was being held in a clean and private environment at an undisclosed secure location.

"It is clean, well guarded ... she came to me smiling if a little bit sad," lawyer Kamal al-Jazouli said. "She said she was sad because she never imagined her stay in Sudan would end up like this."

"She loved her pupils very much and they loved her. She said she would miss them when she goes outside Sudan."