Lawyers representing Meriam Ibrahim, the Sudanese woman sentenced to death for apostasy, have cast doubt over whether she will be freed by accusing the government of political posturing.
The treatment of Ibrahim by the Sudanese authorities was internationally condemned in early May, when the then heavily pregnant woman was sentenced to death for refusing to renounce Christianity, and reportedly imprisoned with her 20-month-old son.
Pressure on Sudan to release Ibrahim increased last week, when the 27-year-old was forced to give birth to her daughter while restrained by shackles.
On Saturday, Sudanese officials announced that Ibrahim would be released “in a few days’ time”, the BBC reported Abdullahi Alazreg, an under-secretary at the foreign ministry, as having said.
But a day later her lawyer Elshareef Ali Mohammed warned: “Nothing has changed.”
“Meriam is still in prison. This was a political statement made under pressure from an international campaign,” he told the Guardian.