Letter: John Major should "interfere"

From Ms Pamela Thomas

Sir: I do not understand the logic behind the remarks made by Tom Charron who originally prosecuted Nick Ingram ("Major warned against trying to stop execution", 30 March) when he says:

I don't know how Mr Major could even intelligently ask for clemency, not knowing the facts of the case, and not appearing to interfere with the laws of the United States.

President Clinton "interfered", with vigour, in the case of the American citizen sentenced in Singapore to a flogging for spraying cars with paint. This did not stop the sentence being carried out, but an important humanitarian point was made.

In Mr Ingram's case, where the sentence is even more barbaric and brutal, surely Mr Major should "interfere" with appropriately greater vigour, if only to make a proportionately more important humanitarian point.

Yours faithfully,

PAMELA THOMAS

Oxford

31 March