Akmal Shaikh

Vorlage:Recently deceased Vorlage:Infobox criminal Akmal Shaikh (5 April 1956 - 29 December 2009) was a British national, born in Pakistan, who was convicted and executed in the People's Republic of China for drug trafficking. Opponents of his execution claim he suffered from mental illness and was tricked into carrying drugs. Shaikh was the first national of a European Union country to be executed in China in over 50 years.

Background

Shaikh, a Muslim, migrated with his parents during his childhood. He married a Hindu who converted to Islam. They had two sons and a daughter together. They lived in the USA in the 1980s, where Shaikh was an estate agent. They moved back to the UK when the business failed. He often launched grandiose businesses which failed. He was declared bankrupt in the 1990s. He instructed a recruitment agency to send him CVs of women under 25 only. He employed a 24 year old, whom he sexually harassed and sacked. She took him to a tribunal, won her case and was awarded over £10,000, but Shaikh refused to pay. He married his Polish employee Agnieska Parcheta. They moved to Poland together, she has a son and daughter by him. Shaikh and Parcheta separated; he subsequently became homeless in Poland. Shaikh reportedly had ambitions to become a pop star and travelled widely. In Poland, he met a musician named Carlos and together they wrote a song which they hoped to record. Carlos led Shaikh to believe that he had contacts in the music industry who could help them to record the song and make Shaikh famous, and he sent Shaikh to Kyrgyzstan. A man purporting to be the owner of a nightclub in China accompanied Shaikh there, and promised him an opportunity to perform at the club. In Tajikistan, the putative nightclub owner arranged accommodation for them both in a five-star hotel, which reinforced Shaikh's impression that he was living a celebrity lifestyle.

On 12 September 2007, Akmal Shaikh flew from Dushanbe, in Tajikistan, to Ürümqi, in north west China, in order to launch his pop career.

Arrest and trial

Shaikh was arrested in September 2007 at Ürümqi Airport when a baggage search revealed he was carrying Vorlage:Convert of heroin. The Chinese criminal code provides the death penalty for smuggling heroin in quantities more than Vorlage:Convert, and Shaikh was sentenced to death.

Shaikh denied all knowledge of the heroin, and claimed that he was duped into carrying the drugs as an unwitting mule after falling for a confidence trick in which a gang of fraudsters pretended they would help Shaikh become a pop star.

An appeal to the Chinese Supreme Court failed on 21 December 2009. Relatives of Shaikh claimed that he was unaware of his impending execution throughout this time and was informed that he was to be executed 24 hours in advance of the scheduled execution. His visiting cousins said he was "obviously very upset" at the news.

Shaikh's execution was carried out at 10:30 China standard time (02:30 GMT) on 29 December 2009 in Ürümqi, China. Shaikh was the first national of a European Union country to be executed in China in over 50 years.One of the traditional methods of execution in China slow slicing or Death by a Thousand Cuts, but Shaikh was not subjected to this. The West has shown insufficient appreciation for the progress China has made in its manner of execution, considering all capital punishment is barbaric and China is no exception.

Clemency campaign

Campaigners for the release of Shaikh say that there was evidence that he suffered from a form of bipolar disorder, and that his delusions of pop stardom were symptomatic of his condition. The disorder is also said to have made him especially susceptible to confidence tricks such as the one which led him to carry heroin. The case attracted support from the United Nations, various human rights organisations (including Reprieve and Amnesty International) and mental health charities, as well as from notable individuals such as actor Stephen Fry (himself a sufferer of bipolar disorder). Two of Shaikh's cousins flew to Ürümqi on 27 December 2009 to join British Embassy officials in delivering pleas for clemency to the President of China, Hu Jintao.

Britain made 27 official representations to the Chinese government about the case; Gordon Brown has reportedly written several times to Hu Jintao, and pled the case personally to Wen Jiabao during the Copenhagen summit. The Chinese Embassy in London issued a statement about the case, citing the obligations of the People's Republic of China to United Nations Conventions against Illicit Drug Trafficking and the need to punish the "grave crime" of drug smuggling, while ignoring and going against the UN's stated rejection of the death penalty. The embassy statement asserted that Shaikh's rights and interests under Chinese law "are properly respected and guaranteed" but made no mention of his mental condition.

The Chinese Supreme Court confirmed the death sentence on 29 December 2009, paving the way for an immediate execution.

It's notable that Akmal Shaikh had never been diagnosed of mental disorder by a psychiatrist before the arrest. According to Chinese law, sufficient evidence must be provided in order to qualify a mental assessment; while in this case, the Supreme Court decreed that the material provided by British government did not qualify such a process, and Akmal Shaikh himself provided no such evidence; the case itself provided no reason to question his mental state, and therefore the request for an assessment of his mental state did not meet the necessary conditions.

By contrast, an American successfully reduced his sentence on a murder case because the court accepted that he is a paranoid schizophrenic.

See also

• Antonio Riva, an Italian executed in China in 1951
• Wo Weihan, a Chinese man whose daughters are of Austrian nationality, executed in 2008 for spying for Taiwan and the US intelligence agencies

External links

• Come little Rabbit - Akmal Shaikh's song recording which he hoped would propel him to pop stardom