Update: A congressional source confirmed that Mariam Yehya Ibrahim was released from police custody Thursday hours after TheBlaze's initial story was published, though she is reportedly not currently allowed to leave Sudan.
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A Sudanese Christian woman accused of apostasy is still in police custody, despite a report stating that she had been released after being re-arrested earlier this week, a congressional aide told TheBlaze.
The aide said Mariam Yehya Ibrahim's attorneys are working on a bail agreement, but that at least one effort to secure her release failed earlier this week. The Republican staffer, who was not authorized to speak publicly, said Ibrahim, her husband Daniel Wani and their two children are still being detained.
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 last week, as the NGO visits her in a room at a prison in Khartoum, Sudan. (AP Photo/Al Fajer, File)
Ibrahim was arrested Tuesday when she presented travel information at a Sudanese airport, the aide said. She was accompanied by Wani and their children as they reportedly attempted to flee to the United States.
It is currently unclear what form of documentation she presented and which laws she is accused of breaking, but Ibrahim was held for several hours and then brought to an undisclosed location; her family is with her and being held at a police station, the aide said.
Ibrahim does not appear to have been formally charged yet. There was speculation this week that she would be hit with counts of fraudulent document possession for allegedly presenting a false statement and forging documents.
TheBlaze previously reported that Ibrahim was detained by Sudan’s infamous National Intelligence and Security Services, a government body with sweeping authority to hold detainees indefinitely.
Daniel Wani and his wife (Image source: Gabriel Wani/Facebook)
Amnesty International has dubbed the NISS “agents of fear,” accusing the government organization of engaging in “killings, torture, arbitrary detentions, and mental and physical intimidation against opponents and critics of the government.”
The congressional aide said some believe that Sudanese political leaders are using the documents charge in an effort to further punish Ibrahim for her Christian faith after an appeals court threw out a death sentence conviction she was given for refusing to embrace Islam.
She said that Ibrahim's attorneys, who are Muslim, have faced death threats from extremists groups as a result of defending her against apostasy charges.
Read more about the case here.
