Donald MacLeod: What about the rights of murdered Kriss’s devastated family?

THERE are times when I read or hear something true that is so outrageous I question my own sanity.

I become so furious that I have to immediately stop what I’m doing, take a deep breath and count to 10 or I would simply burst with rage.

One such occasion happened this week when I heard that the convicted racist murderer of

15-year-old Kriss Donald, Imran Shahid “Baldy” to those unfortunate enough to know him had successfully won his appeal in the Supreme Court that his human rights had been violated.

The judges agreed with Shahid’s legal challenge that being kept in solitary confinement for 14 months, in part for his own safety, was in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights and was therefore unlawful.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing nor, I imagine, could Kriss’s bereft family.

The idea that this animal should be given justice of any sort must have hit them like a ton of bricks and brought the horrendous memories of March 15, 2004, rushing back.

They must be left wondering if justice has truly forgotten them and if they will ever be rid of this savage brute and the acts he and his evil cohorts carried out on their young and innocent son.

Plucked at random from Kenmore Street in Glasgow by Shahid and his gang simply because he was a white boy, promising footballer Kriss was taken on a terrifying 200-mile road trip to Dundee and back.

They took him to waste ground in the East End of Glasgow, held his arms behind his back and stabbed him 13 times. They then doused him in petrol and set him on fire while he was still alive.

The true nature of his injuries cannot be printed in a family newspaper but the torment and suffering Kriss must have gone through as his life ebbed away is the stuff of nightmares.

We can’t even imagine the despair and inconsolable grief his family have gone through since that awful day.

Our hearts and our sympathies reach out to them. It’s bad enough losing a loved one in normal and expected circumstances, but truly awful when they are so young and worse still in such a brutal and horrific manner.

Imran Shahid, his bother Zeeshan, Daanish Zahid and Mohammed Mustaq were eventually caught and sentenced to life imprisonment for racially motivated murder, the first case of its kind to have been brought before a Scottish court.

A fifth member of the gang, Zahid Mohammed, was jailed for five years for racially motivated assault. Imran was told he must serve at least 25 years.

Kriss’s family, though, because of Shahid’s crimes, are now also serving their own life sentence.

But rather than being left to rot until the end of time, unrepentant Shahid is instead being allowed, at our expense, to shape the conditions of his incarceration and make a mockery our criminal justice system.

Something is very clearly wrong here.

If I had my way he and his gang would be hung for their crimes!

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for the rehabilitation of the offender and support most measures that help reintegrate the prisoner into society.

But when it comes to brutal monsters like Shahid murderers who have no empathy, no regret, no compassion and no soul then there is only one way I want to see them coming out of prison. And that is in a hearse.