Scottish lawmakers urged to posthumously pardon 'witches'

0 Comments | AFP, February, 2008

EDINBURGH (AFP) — Lawmakers in Scotland are being asked to push for a posthumous pardon of everyone found guilty under ancient witchcraft laws, including a spiritualist who was convicted during World War II.

One petition, signed online by 206 people, calls for members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs) to urge the executive in Edinburgh to appeal to Britain's interior minister to reconsider a previous refusal to pardon Helen Duncan.

The spiritualist was convicted under the Witchcraft Act 1735 and jailed for nine months in 1944, after a seance in which a dead sailor was said to have disclosed the loss of a British battleship and most of her crew.

The British authorities had kept secret the sinking to maintain morale during World War II and it was not disclosed...