British teacher arrives home from Sudan
A British teacher jailed in Sudan for letting her students name a teddy bear Muhammad as part of a writing project arrived home Tuesday after being pardoned ending a case that set off an international outcry and angered many moderate Muslims.
Gillian Gibbons' flight arrived at London's Heathrow Airport shortly after 7 am (2 am EST), and she told reporters she was looking forward to seeing her family and friends.
"I'm just an ordinary middle-aged primary school teacher. I went out there to have an adventure, and got a bit more than I bargained for," Gibbons said at a brief news conference.
"I don't think anyone could have imagined it would snowball like this," she added.
Gibbons, 54, 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 didn't 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 didn't 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 hard-liner 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 adviser.
Gibbons left Sudan Monday night, flying via Dubai to London.
Her son John, 25, 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 Friday demanding her death.
What Britain and Gibbons' supporters said was a misunderstanding over the teddy bear escalated into a diplomatic flap between London and Khartoum and the show of outrage in Sudan that puzzled many in the West.
Hard-line Muslim clerics in Sudan 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. Many of the demonstrators carried swords and clubs.
But it was never clear how deep anger over the incident really flowed among Sudanese, although the affair was influenced by the ideology that al-Bashir's Islamic regime has long instilled a mix of anti-colonialism, religious fundamentalism and a sense that the West is besieging Islam.
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