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We aim to give criminal courts more flexibility to award compensation against an offender, and update the remit of compensation orders so they can reflect changes in the means of the offender, and be used to pay funeral and bereavement expenses to the relatives of a deceased victim
Killers may have to pay funeral costs Feb 21, 2009
Your action in releasing Megrahi is as inexplicable as it is detrimental to the cause of justice
MacAskill defends decision amid 'outrage' Aug 24, 2009
The poll demonstrates a very substantial shift of opinion towards support for the justice secretary's decision
Scots now split on Megrahi release Sep 04, 2009
Kenneth "Kenny" Wright MacAskill (born 28 April 1958) is the Scottish Government's Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Scottish National Party Member of the Scottish Parliament for Edinburgh Eastern, formerly Edinburgh East and Musselburgh since 2007. He was previously a regional MSP for Lothian since 1999.
MacAskill was born in Edinburgh and was educated at Linlithgow Academy before studying law at the University of Edinburgh. After completing his training at a firm in Glasgow, he set up Erskine MacAskill. He is married with two sons.
He came to prominence inside the SNP through his activities in the left wing 79 Group and became a party office bearer. In the 1980s he led the "Can't Pay, Won't Pay" campaign in opposition to the Poll Tax. It was widely known that he often disagreed politically with Alex Salmond, leader of the SNP through the 1990s, and he was at one stage viewed as belonging to the SNP Fundamentalist camp, being perceived to be allied to figures such as Jim Sillars and Alex Neil within the party.