British embassy officials in Khartoum said yesterday that a British woman teacher jailed for 15 days for insulting Islam over the naming of a teddy bear "Mohammed" was in good spirits despite her ordeal.
Britain expressed "extreme disappointment" at Thursday's decision to jail and expel Gillian Gibbons, 54, although she avoided a potential flogging for allowing her pupils to give the bear the same name as the Muslim prophet.
"The consul and the deputy ambassador visited her this morning and she was fine," an embassy spokesman said. "She's in good spirits and she's not being mistreated or anything like that."
appeal
The spokesman declined to say where the mother of two was being held. He added that he had seen reports that her lawyer would appeal the sentence, which runs from the time of her arrest on Sunday.
Sudanese authorities also refused to say where Gibbons was being held "for security reasons and to avoid any demonstrations" in deeply Islamic Khartoum.
The trial itself took place behind a significant police barrier to avoid such demonstrations which have, as with last year's publication of caricatures of Prophet Mohammed in Denmark, previously led to violence.
Sheikh Abdul Jalil Karuri told a crowd of the faithful gathered for the Muslim day of prayer at the central Khartoum Martyr's Mosque that Gibbons "did it with the intention of insulting Islam."
The crowd responded with cries of "the army of Islam will prevail."
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said the trial stemmed from an "innocent misunderstanding" as diplomatic contacts continued "in the search for a swift resolution of this issue," the Foreign Office in London said.
outrageous
Cultural and religious leaders in Britain condemned the decision, while the US described the ruling as outrageous.
"We are extremely disappointed that the charges against Gillian Gibbons were not dismissed," Miliband said in a statement.
He twice summoned Sudan's ambassador in London, before and after the ruling, expressing in the second meeting "in the strongest terms our [Britain's] concern at the continued detention of Gillian Gibbons."
Miliband later spoke with the acting Sudanese foreign minister.
"If I offended anyone, I'm sorry. If I had any intention to offend Islam I would have been better off to have done it in Britain," defense lawyer Kamal Jazuli quoted Gibbons as saying in court.
The two defense witnesses, a fellow teacher and a pupil's parent, both said they did not think Gibbons had any intention of offending Islam.
Gibbons was arrested on Sunday after parents at the private English school where she had taught for less than a term complained that in allowing primary schoolchildren to name a cuddly toy Mohammed, she had insulted Muslims.
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