A British schoolteacher was behind bars in an overcrowded Sudanese prison last night after being convicted of inciting religious hatred for letting her pupils name a teddy bear Mohamed.

Gillian Gibbons, 54, escaped a sentence of 40 lashes after apologising to the court for any offence she had caused. But she began serving a 15-day sentence in a women’s prison where the regime is extremely harsh by Western standards.

Many Sudanese consider Omdurman’s women’s prison to be one of the country’s more comfortable jails. It is, however, overcrowded. Many inmates are southern Sudanese women convicted of selling alcohol, and many have babies. Ms Gibbons will have to rely on wellwishers bringing her food and water.

David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, said he was “extremely disappointed” with the sentence and summoned Omer Siddig, the Sudanese Ambassador, to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to explain the decision. Mr Miliband said: “We are extremely disappointed that the charges against Gillian Gibbons were not dismissed. Our clear view is that this is an innocent misunderstanding by a dedicated teacher. Our priority now is to ensure Ms Gibbons’s welfare.” He said he wanted to discuss “the next steps” with his Sudanese counterpart.

There were signs, though, that Ms Gibbons might be allowed out early. The judge told her defence lawyer to prepare her travel documents — secure her an exit visa — as quickly as possible. Legal analysts said they would be surprised if she served the full sentence. They said that the sentence, reached after eight hours of deliberations, was carefully calibrated to reduce domestic tensions.

Omar El Faroug Hassan Shumena, a legal consultant in Khartoum, said the judge had been smart to keep proceedings running late into the evening, but conclude them in a single day. Demonstrations were due today and Ms Gibbons’s case was expected to be highlighted across the capital at Friday prayers.

He said: “He kept it going long into the night so that many people will not hear about it for a while. If it had not ended and then started again on Saturday then it would have made for a very tense situation in the mosques.”

Ali Mohammed Ajab, a member of Ms Gibbons’s defence team, said that the teacher had offered an apology to the court. “She apologised, not that she had done something wrong, but that she was simply doing her job and did not mean any harm,” he said. He said the defence now planned to appeal against the sentence.

Ms Gibbons arrived in Sudan in August to teach at Unity High School. As part of a class project she allowed her pupils to name a teddy bear Mohamed, after one of the most popular boys in class. Colleagues have maintained she intended no offence. However, Muslim leaders were planning a demonstration in Khartoum today to express their anger at a perceived insult to Islam’s holiest prophet.

Earlier, Ms Gibbons had arrived at Khartoum North Criminal Court looking dazed and exhausted to find a scene of pandemonium as police had to push their way through more than 100 people. Ms Gibbons’s pale face registered shock at the level of interest that her case has generated.

The trial was conducted behind closed doors and at first her lawyers were barred from the courtroom. British officials had to argue strenuously to find space on the leather chairs in the neat, air-conditioned court. Press were banned from the courtroom, and three film crews were detained for filming street scenes outside the court.

In court, the judge, Mohammed Youssef, listened to two accounts, one from the school secretary, Sarah Khawad, who filed the first complaint about the teddy bear’s name, and one from the official who has been investigating the case, court sources said.

An accountant from Unity High School was also among the four prosecution witnesses.

It was dark by the time the defence had its chance. The judge allowed defence lawyers to present evidence from two of their four witnesses.

Colleagues maintained that Ms Gibbons had meant no offence. They said her class of six and seven-year-olds had voted on the name, which was shared by one of their most popular members. Isam Abu Hasabu, chairman of Unity High School’s parent teacher association, said: “The whole thing boiled down to a cultural misunderstanding. In our culture we don’t know the bear as a cuddly symbol of mercy.”

As Ms Gibbons’s case was heard, three pick-ups filled with riot police armed with sticks and AK47s stood in the dusty street outside. Plainclothed security officers patrolled the halls.

Sudanese ministers had been trying to play down the case, fearing a public uproar that might make a speedy resolution impossible and further diplomatic isolation inevitable.

The story has gradually been gaining momentum in the Sudanese press, however. Yesterday morning some articles printed angry statements by clerics, although most focused on the diplomatic repercussions.

Along the marble corridors of the courthouse and just across from the closed courtroom where Miss Gibbons’ case was being heard, justice was carried out on a man who had just been sentenced to death for murder. Police dragged him from the courtroom and dealt him 20 lashes with a heavy rubber tube for good measure.

Had Miss Gibbons been sentenced to a flogging, the sentence would have been carried out by a woman, not a man, and in a private room rather than in public. And, like the murderer pinned against the wall, it would have been carried out promptly.

Sharia sentences

— Two British nurses, Deborah Parry and Lucille McLauchlan, confessed in 1996 to murdering an Australian colleague in Saudi Arabia. They claimed the confessions were obtained after torture and sexual abuse, but Parry was sentenced to death and McLaughlan to 500 lashes and eight years in prison. They were pardoned after paying £832,000 to the victim’s brother

— Convicted of selling alcohol in Qatar, Gavin Sherrard-Smith was given 50 lashes in 1993. He said that he “didn’t realise the human body could tolerate such pain”

— A series of bombings in Saudi Arabia in 2000 were blamed on the illicit alcohol trade among expatriate workers. Two men, one of whom was born in Britain, were sentenced to public beheading after admitting the crimes on television. They retracted their confessions and were released after the Saudi King granted them “royal clemency”

Source: Times archive, agencies

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