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Gambia News : Fulton gets more hard labour

A court sentenced David Fulton to 3 extra years of hard labour after he pleaded guilty to forging an official licence plate, on top of the 1 year he is already serving for criticising Gambia's president, Yahya Yammeh.

A hearing on a separate charge of impersonating an army officer, which Fulton denies, was postponed until April 2.

Fulton, 60, and his wife Fiona, 46, were arrested in Banjul in late November. They pleaded guilty to charges of sedition for criticising Gambia in emails related to their Christian missionary work in the mainly Muslim state.

On December 30 they were sentenced to 1 year in prison with hard labour and a fine, the first foreigners to be jailed for sedition in Gambia, a country often criticised for its human rights record.

The Fultons, who have lived in Gambia since 1999, have ties to the Westhoughton Pentecostal Church outside Bolton in northwest England.