By Richard Edwards, Crime
Correspondent
Last Updated: 1:54PM GMT 30 Dec 2008
David Fulton, 60, a former Army
major, and his wife, Fiona, 46, pleaded guilty to making seditious comments
"with intent to bring hatred or contempt against the president or the
government".
Their sentence, in a country
which has one of west Africa's worst human rights
records, sparked concern after reports that other prisoners on similar charges
have been poisoned while in jail.
The couple,
originally from Torquay in Devon, have spent 12
years in
Friends said that they were not
given details of what exactly they were accused of until appearing in court.
They were sentenced in the
capital,
According to Pastor Martin Speed,
of
The
Mr Fulton was a chaplain in the Gambian army
and at the national airport and had begun ministering to spiritual needs at the
immigration posts that dot the long frontiers with
Meanwhile, Mrs
Fulton spent her time training prison chaplains, looking after terminally ill
people and visiting female hospital patients.
Peter McMinn, Mrs
Fulton's father, said that before the couple's arrests, his son-in-law had been
attacked three times in the street by locals who did not like the couple's
Christian beliefs. He said: "They threw stones at him and attacked him
with bits of wood. He was very shaken."
Mr McMinn, 80, from Teignmouth,
"David went out to
"My daughter is a wonderful
mother and a person who selflessly does her best to help those in need. She is
doing work that God has given her to do."
There have been six coup attempts
during his 14-year rule. Whilst the country is constitutionally secular, the
population is 90 per cent Muslim.
Amnesty International believes
that at least 30 alleged government opponents are being held in poor conditions
in Mile Two without charge or access to lawyers or their families.
A recent report by the human
rights watchdog concluded: "Lawyers are reluctant to take on human rights
cases for fear of reprisals and families of victims are afraid to speak out.
The media, for the most part, censors itself in the face of arrests, fines,
threats and physical attacks on those accused of criticising
the government. All public protests have ceased."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/lawandorder/4030112/British-missionaries-in-Gambia-jailed-for-one-year-with-hard-labour-for-sedition.html