BANJUL, August 19, 2008 (AFP) - A Gambian journalist who was a trenchant critic of President Yahya Jammeh was ordered to pay an immediate 8,000 euros fine Monday -- or else face four years behind bars, a court official said.

The Gambian Press Union said that between the journalist's family and her union, Fatou Jaw Manneh managed to assemble the money (almost 12,000 dollars) and avoid imprisonment.

Resident in the United States since obtaining political asylum in 1994, following the coup which brought Yahya Jammeh to power, Manneh was arrested in March 2007 by officers of Gambia's National Intelligence Agency when she returned to Africa for her father's funeral.

She was found guilty in the Kanifing court of intending to commit an act of sedition and publishing false information.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) on Monday condemned a sentence it said 'showed the desire for personal revenge by the president towards those who criticise him, and not a fair court decision.'