CNN International was the first to break the news that the British teacher had been pardoned by the President of Sudan. Here is CNNI’s release on the story…

CNN International today broke the news of Gillian Gibbons’ pardon by the Sudanese president at 0805 GMT, and also secured the first live interview with Lord Ahmed, one of the two British Muslim politicians in Sudan to help secure her release.

In an interview with CNN International, presenter Adrian Finighan asked Lord Ahmed: “Have you managed to speak to the Government back home to let them know of your success?”

Lord Ahmed replied: “Well I am sure that they will be watching CNN and I am sure they will be watching other news channels and they will get the news…these days the news channels are much faster than even us and I’m sure that they’ve got the good news.”

During the course of the interview, Ahmed also commented to CNN: “This was an unfortunate, unintentional, innocent misunderstanding. I am very confident that the whole matter will be resolved within hours rather than days.”

CNN broke the story in a series of compelling reports from Sam Dealey, a correspondent at sister Time Warner company, TIME.

Nick Wrenn, CNN’s Managing Editor for EMEA, commented: “This story has been front and centre of CNN’s coverage in recent days and the cooperation with TIME magazine has given us competitive advantage. It was a coup to see us get the story ahead of the other UK broadcasters and it is in times like this that the strength of our relationship with TIME comes to the fore.”