Police launch probe after Humza Yousaf targeted with racist abuse

An investigation is under way after Scotland’s health secretary received racist abuse and death threats.

On Saturday afternoon, Humza Yousaf shared screenshots of a series of emails containing racial-epithets and threatening subject lines.

He wrote: “This flurry of racist abuse and death threats is clearly from someone extremely deranged [and] luckily this level of threat is rare.

“But unfortunately too many think politicians are fair game for abuse, we’re human too, I’m a parent of two kids, how can I not be affected by this?”

The emails were sent to the health secretary and a number of others, with one also being sent to former UK Government special adviser Dominic Cummings.

Some emails were titled “Let’s kill Humza” and “Bring me the head of Humza”.

Yousaf has since deleted the initial Twitter post containing the screenshots.

Writing on Twitter on Sunday morning, he said: “My thanks as always to those who reached out after the vile racism and death threats I received. I have deleted the tweet as I don’t want that filth on my timeline.

“As you’d imagine the threats will be reported to Police Scotland.

“The voices of good always outweight the bad.”

A Police Scotland spokesperson said: “We have received a complaint and our enquiries are ongoing.”