Legendary criminal defence lawyer Joe Beltrami has died at the age of 83.
The famed solicitor, who appeared in more than 350 murder trials, passed away last night.
Before retiring in 2008, he represented some of the highest profile - and controversial figures - in Scottish criminal history.
During his 50-year law career, he represented Jimmy Boyle and gangland godfather Arthur Thompson Snr.
The law firm he set up said today: "It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of our founder, the legendary Mr Joseph Beltrami.
"Sincere condolences to his family."
Beltrami qualified as a solicitor in 1956, and is understood to have saved 12 clients from the hangman's noose.
He also served two years of National Service where, among other duties, he served as a translator in Paris.
His reputation for successfully defending his clients was so widely known, the cry: "Get me Beltrami" was said to be a familiar one among the criminal fraternity.
The Glasgow Bar Association also paid tribute to Mr Beltrami in a statement.
It read: "The Glasgow Bar Association joins with other colleagues in the legal profession in mourning the death of Joe Beltrami.
"We offer sincere condolences to Joe's family.
"Joe was well known to all who practiced at the Glasgow Bar."
Two of his cases led to the only royal pardons granted in Scotland in the twentieth century - Patrick Meehan, who was falsely accused of murder in 1969, and Maurice Swanson, wrongly convicted for a bank robbery.
Other notable clients included legendary Glasgow safecracker Johnny Ramensky and Walter Scott Ellis, who was accused of murdering a Glasgow taxi driver in 1961.
He also helped launch the careers of several QCs, including Donald Findlay.
Born in Rutherglen, the son of a Swiss father and Scottish mother, Beltrami was brought up in the city's Briggait area.
In 2009, the lawyer was presented with an honorary life membership of the Law Society of Scotland.
Beltrami, who lived in Bothwell, Lanarkshire, leaves behind three sons and eight grandchildren.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article