Fury as China executes British drug smuggler
Fierce condemnation as last-ditch attempt to prevent death of Akmal Shaikh, 53, fails
China was this morning condemned for its human rights record after a British man who, his supporters say, had mental health problems, was executed for smuggling drugs.
Akmal Shaikh, 53, was put to death at 10.30am local time (2.30am British time) after frantic last-minute pleas for clemency by the Foreign Office failed.
Britain had demonstrated its anger with Beijing over the treatment of Shaikh, who had smuggled 4kg (8.8lb) of heroin into China, when it summoned the Chinese ambassador for a diplomatic dressing down at the Foreign Office…
Hours before the deadline – and after voicing Britain’s opposition to the death penalty in a telephone call to his Chinese counterpart – Lewis told the ambassador that it was “not right” that Shaikh’s mental health had been overlooked by the court that sentenced him…
Shaikh was informed of his death sentence yesterday when British consular officials accompanied two of his cousins Soohail Shaikh and Nasir Shaikh, to the secure hospital in Urumqi where he was being held. His death sentence marks the first time an EU national has been executed in China in 50 years.
In a statement after the meeting, they said: “He was obviously very upset on hearing from us of the sentence. We strongly feel that he’s not rational and he needs medication. We feel a pardon would allow Akmal to get the medical assistance he needs.” The family filed a last-minute petition for a stay of execution and an application for a special pardon to China’s supreme court, to the president, and to the standing committee of the people’s national congressNational People’s Congress orthe parliament.
Shaikh, a father of three, was arrested in Urumqi in September 2007 and charged with drug smuggling. He lost a final appeal last week, but campaigners claim his mental illness was not taken into account.
The anti-death-penalty organisation Reprieve said it had medical evidence that Shaikh believed he was going to China in 2007 to record a hit single that would usher in world peace. It said he was duped into carrying a suitcase packed with heroin on a flight from Tajikistan to Urumqi.
As the hours counted down to his execution, witnesses gave more evidence of Shaikh’s strange behaviour in the past.
Paul Newberry, a British national who lives in Poland, described how Shaikh while there had lived in a fantasy world: “He had no money but was never desperate for it. He was clearly not desperate enough to smuggle heroin to China.”
trafficking organization La Familia Michoacana (LFM), the morning of Oct. 22. According to the officials, 1,186 individuals across 19 states were arrested and $33 million, 1,999 kilograms of cocaine, 2,730 pounds of methamphetamine, 29 pounds of heroin, 16,390 pounds of marijuana, 389 weapons, 269 vehicles and two synthetic drug laboratories were seized over the course of the operation.