Briton rots in Portuguese jail

THE furore over the two nurses who returned from a Saudi Arabian jail last week has overshadowed the fact that at least 2,000 other British people are currently languishing in foreign prisons without access to proper legal advice or fair trials.

But in many cases they are neither young nor female and their plights are largely ignored, whether they are innocent or not.

Professor David Lowry, an expert in human rights and international law, has been in a Portuguese jail for the past 13 months but he was only charged - with fraud - last month, and faces a minimum four-year wait before his case comes to trial.

He is imprisoned in an EU member state whose penal code is supposed to enshrine the European Convention of Human Rights. At the very least the Portuguese should have guaranteed his release pending any trial.

He is in extremely poor health and his lawyer is afraid he may not survive. But his case has received little coverage and although his local MP, Michael Clapham, has become involved, it is a far cry from the Prime Minister meeting King Fahd of Saudi Arabia and raising the subject.

Stephen Jakobi, of Fair Trials Abroad, said: "It bothers me that so many cases do not get the heavyweight political support that others, like the nurses, get. The tabloids are interested in young women and that gives the politicians an impetus to get involved, as opposed to boring middle- aged men who may have the same kind of case but do not manage to get the media on-side - which in turn does not drive the MPs."

Professor Lowry was arrested in April 1997 after a complaint from a client about a stock-broking firm he was managing in Lisbon. There was no official investigation into the complaint and he was sent to the top- security Caxias jail where he has remained ever since.

Under the Portuguese penal code, people can be held for a year before they are charged and it then takes years for a case to come to court.

He spends up to 22 hours a day in a cell - designed for five men - with 13 convicted criminals who include killers and drug smugglers. Four are suffering from Aids. The 54-year-old father of two is suffering from high blood pressure, an irregular heart-beat and thyroid tumours.

Gudrun Parasie, a consultant lawyer who is helping Professor Lowry, said she was extremely concerned about his health. "Keeping him locked up like this is tantamount to a death sentence," she said.