(God, I love alliteration!)

Controversial expat British teacher Gillian Gibbons, who was jailed in Khartoum for allowing her pupils to name a teddy bear “Muhammad,” is to be freed, having been granted a presidential pardon.

The Guardian has the hairy details:

The breakthrough came after a meeting between two British Muslim peers, Lord Nazir Ahmed and Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, with Sudan’s president Omar al-Bashir.

Lord Ahmed said al-Bashir had agreed to pardon the teacher.

Asked whether Gibbons had been pardoned, a presidential adviser told Reuters: “Definitely, yes.”…

Reacting to the news, Khalid al-Mubarak, of the Sudanese embassy in London, said: “Congratulations. I am overjoyed.

“She is a teacher who went to teach our children English and she has helped a great deal and I am very grateful. What has happened was a cultural misunderstanding, a minor one, and I hope she, her family and the British people won’t be affected by what has happened.

There is, at this time, no word on whether the Americans now intend to place her in custody for referring to the problematic plush in question as a Teddy Bear.

:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::