China Executes British Man Convicted on Drug Smuggling Charges

China ignored calls for clemency and went forward with their execution of a British man who had been convicted of drug smuggling in 2007.

Akmal Shaikh was convicted of smuggling 4kg of heroin into the country but his family insisted that he suffered from mental illness and was bipolar, a contention the British government echoed when requesting clemency for the 53-year-old. Those requests were ignored by China which argued Shaikh provided no evidence of mental illness during his trial.

Upon learning that Shaikh had been put to death by lethal injection British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said “I condemn the execution of Akmal Shaikh in the strongest terms, and am appalled and disappointed that our persistent requests for clemency have not been granted.”

Shaikh became the first EU national to be executed in China in more than 50 years. His family insisted that he was incapable of understanding the gravity of what he was doing when he was approached by a criminal organization in Poland and asked to carry luggage into China. Shaikh’s daughter told authorities that he father had been told if he took the luggage he would be made into a pop star, further evidence of his fragile mental state.

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