A DRUGS campaigner yesterday said punishments handed to drug traffickers need to fit the crimes after a convicted smuggler jailed for 10 years absconded from an open prison.
Christian Ekkebus was convicted in December 2000 after he and two others were caught with 8.5 tons of cannabis on a boat, the Red Scorpion, by coastguards off the north of Scotland.
Ekkebus, 33, and the others were jailed for 14 years each but he had his sentence reduced on appeal.
On February 4 this year he left Castle Huntly open prison in Perthshire on weekend leave - but never returned. It has been reported that he left the country using a fake passport and returned to his home 50 miles north of Amsterdam in his native Holland.
Alistair Ramsay, director of Scotland Against Drugs, said:
"Where a custodial sentence is meted out by the court that sentence should be served in an institution which matches the nature of the crime."
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