Gibbons

Khartoum, Dec. 2: The British teacher jailed in Sudan for naming a teddy bear Mohammed has said that she wished she could stay in the country.

Gillian Gibbons, who faces deportation when she is released, said: “I’m really sad to leave and if I could go back to work tomorrow, then I would.”

In a statement issued through her legal team, Gibbons added: “I’m fine, I’m well, I’m very grateful to all the people who have been working on my behalf. I know so many people out there have done so much.

“I know the Prime Minister called my son and I am really, really grateful to everyone.”

“I want people to know that I have been well treated and especially that I am being well fed.”

Last night, two peers were engaged in a frantic round of diplomacy as they sought to secure Gibbons’s freedom.

Labour’s Lord Ahmed and Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, a Conservative, said they were optimistic about the chances of persuading the Sudanese President, Omar al-Bashir, to release the 54-year-old teacher, but admitted they faced an uphill struggle. “It could be a very long night,” Ahmed said.

Despite street protests against her by hundreds of angry demonstrators, some waving swords, Gibbons expressed gratitude for her treatment.

“I’ve been given so many apples that I feel I could set up my own stall. The guards are constantly asking if I have everything I need,” she said.

“The Sudanese people in general have been pleasant and very generous and I have had nothing but good experiences in my four months here.”

Gibbons, who is being held in a government-owned house in the capital, Khartoum, with access to her own room and bathroom, spent more than an hour yesterday talking to the British peers.

“I don’t think they took her to prison because they did not want her to come away with an even worse opinion of Sudan,” a member of her legal team said.

In a telephone call to her son John in Liverpool, Gibbons said: “I don’t want any resentment towards Muslim people.”

Her son said it had been a relief to hear from his mother. “She’s holding up quite well,” he said. “It’s made me feel a lot better… we chatted for a reasonable length of time and she didn’t seem too distressed.”

He said he had spoken to David Miliband, the UK foreign secretary, who had assured him that diplomats were doing all they could.