British Couple Await Sentence

Following their plea of guilty to the offence charged, the British Couple David Borland Fulton and Fiona Rachael Fulton will know their fate when their case resumed on 30th December 2008.

The British Couple is standing trial at the Banjul Magistrates' Court, presided over by Principal Magistrate Edrissa Mbai, on a charge of seditious publication contrary to the laws of The Gambia.

According to the particulars of the offence, in the year 2007 and 2008 at Banjul and diverse places in The Gambia, jointly printed, distributed, and reproduced seditious publications intended to bring into hatred or contempt to excite disaffection against the president or the government of The Gambia, thereby committed an offence.

ASP Touray, the prosecuting officer in narrating the facts of the case stated that it was in the month of November 2008, a concerned Gambian visited the United Kingdom and went to one of the Church in the UK were he was confronted with some documents from The Gambia. He said the Gambian was asked whether what they saw from those documents was something that was happening in The Gambia. He said those documents were later faxed to Gambian security to explain whether what contained in those documents was what really happening in The Gambia.

ASP Touray further adduced that immediately those documents where faxed to the Gambian securities, a joint sister security service mounted an investigation which led them to the residence of the accused persons in Kololi. He said inside the accused persons' house they found CPU and two-lab tops and in the presence of the accused persons the information was downloaded and 69 copies were printed. He added that going through those 69 copies it was discovered that the accused persons made bad remarks about The Gambia. The said 69 copies were later tendered as exhibits. He said the accused persons where confronted with the 69 pages which they confessed to owning the documents. He added that they were later cautioned and charged with the offence committed. Their statements were later tendered in court as exhibits.

After the facts were narrated by the prosecution, both accused persons admitted the facts as correct and accurate.