British teacher back home from Sudan

Gibbons, who was jailed for more than a week, was freed after two Muslim members of Britain’s House of Lords met with Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir and the teacher sent the President a statement saying she did not mean to offend anyone with her class project.

“It has been an ordeal but I’d like want you to know that I was well-treated in prison and everybody was very kind to me,” she said. “I was very sorry to leave Sudan. I had a fabulous time there. It’s a really lovely place, and I managed to see some of the beautiful countryside while I was there.”

Gibbons said she did not want her experience “to put anyone off going to Sudan—- in fact I know of a lovely school that needs a new Year Two teacher”.

The incident was the latest in a tense relationship between the West and Sudan’s President, an Islamic hardliner who has been accused by the United Nations of dragging his feet on the deployment of peacekeepers to the country’s war-torn Darfur region.

Al-Bashir insisted Gibbons had a fair trial, in which she was convicted of insulting Islam’s Prophet Muhammad, but the President agreed to pardon her during the meeting with the British delegation, said Ghazi Saladdin, a senior presidential advisor.

Gibbons left Sudan on Monday night, flying via Dubai to London. Her son John went to the airport from his home in Liverpool. “I’d like to thank the Government for all they have done, the hard work behind the scenes, especially the two peers who went out there. Everyone’s been really great,” he said.

Gibbons had been held at a secret location in Sudan since protesters marched on Friday, demanding her death.

What Britain and Gibbons’ supporters said was a misunderstanding over the teddy bear escalated into a diplomatic flap and the show of outrage in Sudan that puzzled many in the West.

Hardline Muslim clerics here denounced Gibbons, saying she intentionally aimed to insult Islam. A day after her Thursday trial, several thousand Sudanese massed in central Khartoum to demand that Gibbons be executed.

“Common sense has prevailed,” British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said in a statement, expressing delight over Gibbons release.