Hearts and minds

‘Among all criminals and murderers, the most dangerous type is the criminal physician.’

‘Among all criminals and murderers, the most dangerous type is the criminal physician.’ So said Dr Miklos Nyiszli, a Jewish prisoner at Auschwitz who acted as pathologist to Josef Mengele. The unspeakable depravities of the Nazi doctors were catalogued at the Nuremberg Medical Trial, which led to the conviction of 15 German physicians and scientists.

The discovery that those arrested in connection with the planned car-bomb attacks have links with the NHS, as doctors, medical students and technicians, and that the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley appears to have been the headquarters of the cell, is deeply shocking. Yet, as Stephen Schwartz and Irfan Al-Alawi warn on page 20, it would be quite wrong to detect any conflict, in the warped mind of the Islamist doctor, between the solemn duties of the healer and the sacred task of the jihadi.