A teenager who killed the husband she says tried to rape her has had her death sentence overturned by a court in Sudan, her lawyer has said, in what has been hailed as a major victory for women’s rights in the conservative country.
Nineteen-year-old Noura Hussein was sentenced to death by hanging last month by an Islamic court after stabbing and killing her cousin, whom she said her father forced her to marry.
On Tuesday, an appeals court commuted her sentence to five years in jail instead and a fine of 337,500 Sudanese pounds (£14,200). The new sentencing includes time served.
Ms Hussein says she was betrothed to Abdulrahman Mohamed Hammad at the age of 16, but ran away to stay with other relatives to avoid the marriage. She returned home to her family in Khartoum in April 2017 after they said they’d cancelled the union, only to be forced into it anyway.