Jailed Scots missionary to ask for presidential pardon

Published on Sunday 4 January 2009 21:04

A SCOTTISH Christian missionary who was jailed in Gambia with his wife for offending the country's Muslim government, is seeking a presidential pardon, it was revealed yesterday.

A friend of David and Fiona Fulton is to lodge a petition with the Gambian head of state, Yahya Jammeh, asking him to include them on his annual list of pardoned prisoners, to be published shortly.

Mr Fulton, 60, a former army major from Troon, Ayrshire, and Mrs Fulton, 46, were sentenced to a year's hard labour and fined 6,250 for "sedition" after they admitted sending e-mails containing comments "with intent to bring hatred or contempt against the president or the government".

They were charged with sending series of round-robin e-mails to friends and supporters included one, entitled Hell in the Gambia, which said the country was "sinking fast into a morass of Islam".

It is likely they will serve their sentence at Mile Two Prison, a former British colonial jail, where Mr Fulton has been in solitary confinement for the past month.

The couple initially planned to appeal their sentence, but Antouman Gaye, their lawyer, said they were now hoping for a pardon.

Every January the president publishes a list of prisoners he believes should be freed because he deigns they have shown remorse.

Mr Gaye said yesterday: "Nothing would please me more than to see them included in the list of people to be pardoned by the president. I don't believe it's in the interests of anyone to keep them in prison for the year."

The petition is to be lodged by Jim Rae, a water engineer from Motherwell who runs the charity Water for All Africa.