A law lecturer and former Northern Ireland civil rights activist has been found guilty of fraud in Portugal and sentenced to nine years' imprisonment, writes Carol Coulter.
David Lowry, who has been in custody for two years, has said he is appealing against the verdict and sentence.
His lawyers are also appealing to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, on the grounds that he has no effective remedy in Portugal against unfair trial and appeals procedures, of discrimination as a foreigner, and suffering "inhuman and degrading" conditions in prison.
Lowry was found guilty of "aggravated fraud, criminal association, forgery and unauthorised creation of a data base".
The Liverpool-born lawyer studied in Belfast and lectured in Britain before moving to the US, where he taught business law and acted as an adviser to the FBI on white collar crime.
In Portugal he operated a telemarketing business, selling international shares, until his arrest in April 1997.
Ms Gudrun Parasie, director of the European Legal Advice Service, which has been assisting Lowry with his defence, said: "I have just returned from Portugal. I am still shell-shocked, having witnessed a distinguished academic of previous good character being turned into a criminal by a fundamentally flawed justice system, a remnant of the fascist dictatorship of Antonio Salazar".
Ms Parasie said Lowry was sentenced not only for crimes he allegedly committed but his work assisting the FBI to solve white collar crime had given him, according to the court, a "criminal mind" capable of committing great crimes in the future.
She said Lowry had only 10 days to appeal, including translating a very lengthy judgment.