The death sentence handed to a Sudanese teenager who killed her husband when he tried to rape her has been overturned.

Noura Hussein is no longer on death row after her country's appeal court released its verdict, reducing her conviction from 'pre-meditated' murder to 'unlawful killing.'

The conviction carries a five-year jail term.

The 19-year-old woman was sentenced to death by hanging in May after she was found guilty of killing her husband Abudulrhmam Mohammed Hammad.

She said she had acted in self-defence as he tried to rape her for the second time.

Nahid Jabralla from the human rights group SEEMA Centre helped organise Ms Hussein's defence and she has called the appeal court verdict "a step for justice in Sudan."

She said prison chains have now been removed from Noura's legs in the Dar al-Ta'bat Aka prison.

Her lawyers expect to receive an official copy of the verdict on Wednesday and hope to visit her in prison.

Ms Hussein's family will be required to pay 337,500 Sudanese pounds (€16,100) in compensation to the family of the deceased.

📢Breaking📢 Sudan has repealed the death penalty for 19-year-old Noura Hussein, who was sentenced for killing her husband, after he tried to rape her. Thank you to over 400,000 of you who demanded #JusticeForNoura & helped make this happen! pic.twitter.com/euzWQ4LuUX

— AmnestyInternational (@amnesty) June 26, 2018

Her father had arranged the marriage when she 15-years-old - but she rejected the match and ran away.

Under local customs, the groom's family were owed money. The teenager was lured back to the family home and compelled to wed several weeks later.

Noura refused to consummate the relationship and five days after the wedding, her husband raped her while his uncles and cousins held her down.

The next night, he tried to rape her again. She stabbed him to death.

In her defence, she said she had taken the knife to bed and hid it under her pillow because she planned to kill herself.