'She's in shackles': Devastated American husband describes seeing his pregnant wife on death row with their toddler in Sudan for marrying a Christian

Mariam Yahya Ibrahim Ishag, 27, was sentenced to death last week for refusing to renounce her Christian faith in front of Sudanese court which considers her a Muslim

She was also charged with adultery for marrying Christian Daniel Wani and sentenced to 100 lashes



She told the Sudanese court: 'I was never a Muslim. I was raised a Christian from the start'

Ishag is considered a Muslim by the court because her father was a Sudanese Muslim despite her being raised by a Christian mother

She has been shackled at the legs in prison where she is being held with the couple's 20-month-old son Martin

The couple's lawyer is working on an appeal to the 27-year-old's sentence amid mounting international pressure

Mr Wani was born in war-torn Sudan but fled to the U.S. in 1998. He settled in Manchester, New Hampshire

Daniel Wani says his son Martin is a U.S. citizen, but State Department would not confirm the boy's legal status



The husband was allegedly asked to send a DNA sample to U.S. Embassy in Khartoum to prove Martin is his son



A U.S. citizen, who rushed to his native Sudan to save his pregnant wife from the death sentence, described his horror at seeing her shackled in a prison cell with their toddler son.



Meriam Yahya Ibrahim Ishag, 27, was charged with adultery for marrying Christian Daniel Wani, a Sudanese man with U.S. citizenship who lives in New Hampshire.



She was sentenced to 100 lashes as the Sudanese court refuses to recognize her 2011 marriage to Mr Wani because they consider Ishag a Muslim.



The eight-months pregnant woman, who has a 20-month-old son, was subsequently sentenced to death for the crime of apostasy. Sudanese law considers her a Muslim while she has declared that she was raised Christian and refuses to convert to Islam because Christianity is the only religion she knows.

She told the court: 'I was never a Muslim. I was raised a Christian from the start.'

Scroll down for video

Daniel Wani married wife Meriam in 2011. She was sentenced to death in Sudan last week because the court considers her Muslim and found her guilty of apostasy for converting to Christianity. Her husband, a U.S. citizen, has flown to Sudan, to try to save her life

Ishag is considered Muslim by the Sudanese court because her father was a Sudanese Muslim. However the woman was raised by her Ethiopian Christian mother after her father left them.

She has been shackled at the legs since the sentence was handed down and her feet are swollen, her husband said.



Mr Wani, 33, was allowed to visit his wife for the first time on Monday where she is being held along with the couple's 20-month-old son Martin.



SUDANESE-AMERICAN COUPLE IN A RACE AGAINST THE CLOCK

Daniel Wani and his brother, Gabriel, fled the worn-torn African country of Sudan in 1998 and settled in Manchester, New Hampshire, to get a fresh start.

In 2005, Mr Wani became a naturalized U.S. citizen.He met Meriam Ibrahim, a wealthy Sudanese national who owns a shopping mall in Khartoum, on one of his many visits to Sudan.

In 2012, Wani and Ibrahim married during a Christian wedding ceremony and soon after had their first child, Martin.

The family own homes in New Hampshire and in Khartoum, Sudan, since the husband and wife operate several businesses in both countries.

Last summer, Mr Wani traveled back to Khartoum to arrange for his wife and son to emigrate to the U.S., but the American Embassy was allegedly dragging its feet.

While Daniel Wani was working behind the scenes to try and secure Meriam and Martin's safe passage to the U.S., the 27-year-old woman was arrested after her father's family claimed she was born a Muslim but married a Christian in violation of Sudan's strict religious laws.

Ibrahim had been released pending her trial, but was rearrested in February after being charged with apostasy - an offense punishable by death - after declaring that she had been a Christian since childhood. Her execution by hanging has been delayed by a Sudanese court to allow her to give birth and nurse her infant.

‘We are praying for a miracle,’ her brother-in-law Gabriel Wani told New Hampshire Union Leader.

The father is not allowed to care for Martin because he is a Christian and his son is considered a Muslim.



Daniel Wani , a naturalized American citizen, claims his 20-month-old son, Martin, who is currently sharing a cell with his heavily pregnant mother in a Sudanese women’s prison, was born in the U.S.

However, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of State would not confirm if Martin Wani is in fact a U.S. citizen.



Mr Wani said that when he appealed to the State Department for help in freeing his condemned wife and child from prison, he was asked to provide DNA evidence proving that the toddler was his biological son.



‘I will have to take a DNA sample in Khartoum, then send it to the USA for testing,’ Wani told the news site Morning Star News. ‘I have provided wedding documents and the baby’s birth certificate, and doors were closed on his face.’



The distraught husband added that he has tried to apply for documents to travel to the U.S. with his family, but the American Embassy in Sudan denied him assistance.



‘My son is an American citizen living in a difficult situation in prison,’ the father stated.



When asked by a CNS News reporter about Martin Wani's legal status, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki replied: 'I don't have any more details to share.'

Tina Ramirez, executive director of Hardwired, an American group which fights for religious freedom around the world, told MailOnline today: Yesterday Daniel saw his wife finally but he told us that his wife had shackles on her feet and they were swollen.



'Originally, he had been told he would not be allowed to see her so this was a surprise. He was also told he would only be allowed to see his son Martin once a week.'



The couple's lawyer is working on an appeal to the 27-year-old's sentence amid mounting international pressure.

Mr Wani and his wife Meriam who married in 2011. The couple have a 20-month-old son Martin and the 27-year-old is due to give birth to their second child in a matter of weeks. The Sudanese court has allowed her give birth and nurse the child before they execute her

The happy couple on their wedding day in 2011. Mr Wani described on Monday seeing his pregnant wife shackled in a Sudanese prison where she is being held on sentence of death Ms Ramirez added: 'The lawyers are working on their appeal to the high court and we are standing with them and the people of Sudan who are outraged by this injustice.

'Many young advocates and opposition groups met last week and are calling for the amendment of the criminal code to remove any punishment for apostasy.'

The White House condemned the pregnant mother's treatment and urged the Government of Sudan to meet its obligations under international human rights law . Meriam Yahya Ibrahim, 27, was charged with adultery for marrying Christian Daniel Wani, a Sudanese man with U.S. citizenship living in New Hampshire

The death sentence has been put on hold until she has given birth and nurses her newborn.



Mr Wani now lives in Manchester with his brother Gabriel, who told WMUR that his sibling had returned home to do everything he could to save his wife.



'ABHORRENT VIOLATION': PRESSURE MOUNTS OVER PREGNANT MOTHER'S DEATH SENTENCE

U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) New Hampshire's senators are working to save pregnant Meriam Yahya Ibrahim Ishag from being executed. New Hampshire's Senator Kelly Ayotte and fellow Republican Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri have written to Secretary of State John Kerry urging him to grant the 27-year-old Sudanese woman political asylum.

Senator Roy Blunt (R-MO) Hampshire's Senator Kelly Ayotte and fellow Republican Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri have written to Secretary of State John Kerry urging him to grant the 27-year-old Sudanese woman political asylum. Senator Jeanne Shaheen, (Democrat-New Hampshire) called the death sentence an 'abhorrent violation of fundamental freedoms and universal rights'. The British government had expressed its anger to a senior Sudanese diplomat over the pregnant mother's sentence and urged him to pressure the government to overturn the ruling .



Gabriel Wani said: 'I’m just praying for God. He can do a miracle. Everyone is depressed. You don’t believe it. It’s shock.'

Gabriel Wani said that his brother was at the family's home in Khartoum where he was trying to work iwith the U.S. Embassy to appeal his wife's sentence.



Daniel Wani was in fear for his life, his brother said and believed he was being watched.



Mr Wani married wife Meriam in a formal ceremony in 2011 and the couple own several businesses including a farm close to the Sudanese capital, Fox reported.



Gabriel Wani told the Union Leader that he and his brother had come to the U.S. in 1998 to flee war-ravaged Sudan.



Daniel Wani has been a U.S. citizen since 2005 and last summer went to Sudan to arrange for his wife and son to join him in New Hampshire.

MailOnline was awaiting a comment from the U.S. Department of State.

At last Thursday's sentencing, Judge Abbas al Khalifa asked the pregnant, mother-of-one whether she would return to Islam - but she refused.

She said: 'I am a Christian,' and the death sentence was handed down.

After the verdict her husband, Daniel Wani told CNN: 'I'm so frustrated. I don't know what to do. I'm just praying.'

A government spokesman said the ruling could be appealed in a higher court.

Gabriel Wani speaks on Friday in New Hampshire about his sister-in-law Meriam Yahya Ibrahim Ishag, who is being persecuted in Sudan for her religious beliefs

More than 50 protesters gathered outside the Sudanese court last week where Mariam Yahya Ibrahim Ishag was sentenced to death

Outside the court, around 50 people held up signs that read Freedom of Religion while some Islamists celebrated the ruling, chanting: 'God is Greatest.'



On February 7, Ishag was arrested in September with her 20-month-old son and put in a women’s prison. It is thought a relative had turned her in to the police for marrying a Christian.

According to the Sudan’s Public Order Criminal Code, she is a Muslim by default because she was born in Sudan.

Therefore, her marriage to a Christian is classed as a criminal act.

On March 4, she was charged with adultery and apostasy. The adultery charge came with a punishment of 100 lashes and the apostasy charge came with a punishment of death.

Sudanese university students have protested near Khartoum University in recent weeks asking for an end to human rights abuses, more freedoms and better social and economic conditions in the country.



The authorities decided on Sunday to close the university indefinitely.



Western embassies and Sudanese activists sharply condemned the accusations and called on the Sudanese Islamist-led government to respect freedom of faith.

'The details of this case expose the regime's blatant interference in the personal life of Sudanese citizens,' Sudan Change Now Movement, a youth group, said in a statement.

President Omar Hassan al-Bashir's government is facing a huge economic and political challenge after the 2011 secession of South Sudan, which was Sudan's main source of oil.

A decision by Bashir last year to cut subsidies and impose austerity measures prompted violent protests in which dozens were killed and hundreds were injured.

The White House said that it strongly condemn the sentence and urged the Government of Sudan to meet its obligations under international human rights law.

