Pardon Her, For Pete's Sake!

The Telegraph repots on efforts to secure a pardon for Anna Goeldi, a Swiss woman executed as a witch.

The execution of the last European witch to be sentenced to death by a court of law has plunged Switzerland into an unlikely political debate over whether she should now be pardoned.

Anna Goeldi, a housemaid, was executed by decapitation after being found guilty of witchcraft in the small Alpine town of Glarus in 1782.

Now, 225 years later, a group of local and federal MPs has prepared a parliamentary motion demanding the full rehabilitation of Goeldi, who was tortured into confessing to being a witch and was subsequently beheaded. Campaigners claim she was the victim of a conspiracy between the eastern town's juridical and Protestant church authorities.

Of course, A spokesman for the Swiss Protestant Church said: "History has made its judgment on the case and we need to move on. It would be better to focus our energy on the more acute problems of today." Yeah, what a surprise that you'd say so. Ass.