Teddy teacher leaves Sudan after pardon

By Opheera McDoom

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - A British teacher jailed in Sudan for letting her students name a teddy bear Mohammad left Khartoum for Britain on Monday after winning a pardon.

Gillian Gibbons, sentenced on Thursday to 15 days in jail followed by deportation for insulting Islam, was pardoned after an appeal by two prominent British Muslims to Sudan's president for her early release.

They accompanied her as she left Khartoum airport, heavy with security after hundreds protested on Friday, demanding she be killed.

Gibbons apologised after the pardon announcement for any discomfort she had caused to the people of Sudan.

"I have been in Sudan for only four months but I have enjoyed myself immensely. I have encountered nothing but kindness and generosity from the Sudanese people," she said, in a statement read by British Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, one of the peers who met Bashir.

"I have great respect for the Islamic religion and would not knowingly offend anyone. I am sorry if I caused any distress."

Gibbons prompted a complaint after she let her pupils at Khartoum's private Unity High School pick their favourite name for a teddy bear as part of a project in September.

Twenty out of 23 of them chose Mohammad -- a popular boy's name in Sudan, as well as the name of Islam's Prophet.