A SCOTS mother is to lodge an appeal against her conviction for killing her seriously ill daughter in a failed suicide pact because she cannot bear the stigma of being held responsible for her death.

Margaret Mininni, a former primary school teacher from Glasgow, said she that since her daughter’s death, she felt she was “living a punishment”.

Mininni fired two shots into her daughter Margaret’s chest after the 24-year-old — who suffered from a crippling illness — failed to kill herself by shooting herself in the head.

Last week Mininni was sentenced to three years by a judge in Italy, where she now lives, but walked free because of an amnesty on sentences under 36 months.

While she admits helping Margaret commit suicide, her lawyers will argue that the fatal shot was fired by her daughter and that she should not have been convicted of the killing.

“I don’t want people to believe that my shot killed my daughter. I don’t want the weight of that on my mind,” said Mininni, in a statement. “I obtained the gun, but I shot my daughter after she had already shot herself through the skull. I shot her when I heard her death-rattle.”

Michele de Pascale, Mininni’s lawyer added: “The judge said the mother’s shot had killed her daughter. But a doctor who examined the daughter’s wounds found that the fatal shot was the one she fired into her head, not the one the mother fired afterwards.”

Mininni, who moved to Italy eight years ago with her Italian husband Gennaro, said she had made the pact with Margaret to end her suffering after she contracted the stomach condition toxoplasmosis while on a study trip to Edinburgh.

After Margaret shot herself, she pleaded with her mother to put her out of her misery.

Mininni picked up the handgun and shot her twice in the chest. She then turned the gun on herself but lost her nerve and called the police, telling them: “I’ve just killed my daughter.”

Speaking after her trial, Mininni said: “It is unthinkable to want your daughter dead, but it is more unthinkable to want her tied to a bed screaming with pain and unable to eat. That would have been Margaret’s destiny.”

“It takes a lot of courage to kill yourself. Her courage came from her desire not to suffer any more.”

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