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coli epidemic in Scotland, Mr Forsyth was bound to object to any hint that he and his ministers could be implicated in a cover-up.The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food is frequently the object of criticism from ministers, and it was no surprise to any of them that it should have been the cause of Mr Forsyth's mortification. Yet sitting for marginal Stirling (he has a 703 majority), Mr Forsyth will struggle to survive.Like his predecessor but one and rival, Malcolm Rifkind, he has to be seen to fight Scotland's corner; there have been semi-public Cabinet battles over gun control and the lifting of the beef export ban for Scottish BSE- free herds After the E. Although Mr Hogg and Mr Forsyth spoke by phone on Friday, the split was as deep as any in Whitehall memory.The ferocity of Mr Forsyth's reaction reflects his skill as a street- fighter and his precarious position in Scotland. He has conducted a brutal and effective campaign against Labour, forcing the Opposition into a change of policy over a referendum on devolution, and raising his profile as a possible contender for the Tory leadership. MAFF, smarting from what it saw as a betrayal by Mr Forsyth, made known the dates of the meetings at which Scottish Office officials had been present, and the report made available (in June 1996 and January and February this year). "Scottish Office ministers were not aware of the report and have not seen a copy," the press office said.In Whitehall terms this meant war.

As a Labour spin doctor said gleefully, "The perfect image of a government on its last legs".But when Mr Forsyth arrived in Edinburgh to be briefed on Mr Hogg's explanation to MPs, his department's line was uncompromising. Indeed, ministers at the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food had not seen it either.Exactly what was said at Cabinet on Thursday morning remains opaque, but the Government has again looked divided and incompetent, within weeks of the election.After hurried consultations on Thursday morning Mr Hogg's department thought Mr Forsyth was going to agree its line that the draft report, though never published, had been available to the Scottish Office at several meetings at which its officials were present. Another nail has been driven into the coffin of Douglas Hogg, the Minister of Agriculture, as the inadequacies of his department have been again exposed.But in Scotland this is no mere storm in a teacup: 20 people have died from E. Last week's controversy puts food safety under scrutiny again, and it may have far-reaching consequences. By Thursday morning it dominated the news.Politicians are always vulnerable to the unpredictable, but there were only a few people who could have foreseen the havoc that has been visited on John Major's government by food scares.

Bill Swann, editor of the report, clearly angry that it had been sat on for a year, was happy to be quoted. But he might not have learned about it at all if copies of the report, in brown envelopes, had not arrived early last week in the offices of Dr Gavin Strang, Labour's agriculture spokesman, and Nigel Griffiths, the party's consumer affairs spokesman. By Wednesday evening the story had found its way into the early editions of the Financial Times and the Times. Mr Forsyth had learned of the suppression of a draft report into conditions in Britain's slaughterhouses, which might have been linked to the deadly E coli organism. Then, says a civil servant, "the fertiliser hit the air conditioning".

Within minutes he was on the phone to his officials to check it out. In London last Thursday morning, Michael Forsyth, Secretary of State for Scotland, turned on the 7am news as usual, only to be astonished by the BBC's main headline. What kind of a law says that being an observer is tantamount to pulling the trigger?"The same kind of law that condemned 13 observers to death in South Africa eight years ago, in the old days when apartheid ruled.The National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, leading the Kambule committee for justice, may be reached by fax at 00 1 202 347 2510.. But what is it he needs to be punished for? We need to find a level of punishment comparable to what he did. "Nobody is saying - and I include myself - that Azi should not be punished. It was through wanting to be cool, to fit in, that he got involved with the wrong people."Keenly aware that back home all the years of sacrifice her generation endured have finally yielded conditions that are promising for well-educated young black men like Azi, she must now contemplate the prospect of US law doing to her son what South African law could not, now that the Mandela government has abolished the death penalty ."The bottom line is that somebody is dead and parents are grieving - I never forget that," she said. He stood out and was teased at school because he had a different accent; because he dressed differently, not in the latest teenage style; because he stood up when the teacher came in to class, always said 'Yes, sir,' 'No, sir'.

"People are beginning to divorce their love for Pamela from the situation of this young man," Lumumba said.BUT HOW did the young man get into this situation in the first place? Over a coffee at a diner on the outskirts of Jackson, barely a mile away from the scene of the murder, his mother, Busisiwe Chabeli Kambule, explained "When we arrived Azi battled to adapt to the local culture. His decision to take on the case put him in "a sensitive situation" in the black community but the tide of sentiment is turning, in large part because of the work of the campaigners like Leslie Abrams. But he sees it as his duty, both as a lawyer and as a politically active black man, to overturn what he sees as the monumental injustice being done to his young client. When she disappeared he joined in prayers at the church for her safe return. An American who has taken on an African name, Mr Lumumba used to worship at the same church as Ms McGill.