By Catholic News Service • Posted June 23, 2014

KHARTOUM, Sudan (CNS) — Meriam Ibrahim, 26, a Catholic woman convicted of apostasy for marrying a Christian, was released from prison June 23, her lawyer said.

The lawyer said she was taken to a safe house; she had given birth to a daughter in late May and her 1-year-old son also had been in prison with her.

Ibrahim joined the Catholic Church shortly before she married U.S. citizen Daniel Bicensio Wani in December 2011, said a mid-June statement signed by Father Mussa Timothy Kacho, episcopal vicar for the Archdiocese of Khartoum, which had urged the courts to review her case. In mid-May, she was convicted of apostasy and sentenced to death by hanging. Sudan’s penal code criminalizes the conversion of Muslims to other religions, which is punishable by death.

Wani, who lives in New Hampshire, was refused custody of their son because, under Sudanese law, a Christian man cannot raise a Muslim child.

In Washington, Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., chairman of the House Africa and global human rights subcommittee, called Ibrahim’s release “a huge first step,” and added, “but the second step is that Ms. Ibrahim and her husband and their children be on a plane and heading to the United States.”

Earlier, the Khartoum Archdiocese said Ibrahim’s Sudanese Muslim father abandoned the family when she was 5, and she was raised according to her mother’s faith, Orthodox Christian.

“She has never been a Muslim in her life,” the archdiocese said.

“There are many people trying to persuade Meriam to renounce Christianity in order to be freed, but she is refusing. Some people are pleading with her husband to convince her to abandon Christian faith in order to save her life, but to no avail,” the archdiocese said.

In a May joint statement, Sudan’s churches said the charges against Ibrahim were false and appealed to the Sudanese government to free her from prison.