Sudanese Woman Released After Death Sentence Over Her Christian Faith Sparked International Outrage

A Sudanese woman who made international headlines after she was sentenced to death for refusing to renounce her Christian faith has been released, according to her lawyer.

Attorney Mohaned Mustafa El-Nour said Meriam Yehya Ibrahim, 27, was discharged from prison after an appeals court found that the death-by-hanging punishment against her wasn't warranted, according to CNN.

Ibrahim, who was eight months pregnant when news of her plight made headlines last month, was forced to deliver her baby May 26 in a Khartoum jail; Ibrahim's 18-month-old son also stayed with her in prison.

FILE - In this file image made from an undated video provided Thursday, June 5, 2014, by Al Fajer, a Sudanese nongovernmental organization, Meriam Ibrahim, sitting next to Martin, her 18-month-old son, holds her newborn baby girl that she gave birth to in jail. (AP Photo/Al Fajer, File)  

TheBlaze began covering Ibrahim's plight last month, noting that she was initially told she had three days to change her mind and renounce the Christian faith, but refused.

"I am a Christian and I never committed apostasy,” Ibrahim reportedly told a judge.

Local media reports said that the death sentence wouldn't have been carried out until two years after the baby’s birth.

Authorities apparently became aware of Ibrahim's faith after her father’s side of the family began complaining about her marriage to a Christian man.

Her brother, Al Samani Al Hadi, recently told CNN that he supported the death sentence in the event that his sister's refusal to recant her faith continued.

"It's one of two; if she repents and returns to our Islamic faith and to the embrace of our family then we are her family and she is ours," he said. "But if she refuses she should be executed."

Ibrahim was first arrested and charged with adultery in August 2013 and was later charged with apostasy in February 2014 after she said she was a Christian and not a Muslim, according to the BBC.

She became a Christian after her father, a Muslim, abandoned her family. Her Ethiopian mother, a Christian, then raised her and she adopted her mother’s faith. Ibrahim later married a Christian man named Daniel Wani, a U.S. citizen.

Wani, who is in a wheelchair, reportedly depends on his wife “for all details of his life,” Elnabi told media last month.

Meriam Yahia Ibrahim Ishag, a 27-year-old Christian Sudanese woman sentenced to hang for apostasy, sits in her cell with her baby girl a day after she gave her birth at a women's prison in Khartoum's twin city of Omdurman on May 28, 2014. (AFP PHOTO / STR -/AFP/Getty Images)

Shariah law in Sudan requires that children follow their father’s faith. Originally, Ibrahim was sentenced to 100 lashes for adultery, since her marriage to a Christian is not permitted under the law, according to the New York Daily News.

The case sparked international outrage, as human rights groups decried her treatment and the now-defunct death sentence.

This is a breaking news story. Stay tuned for updates.

(H/T: CNN)