China executes British citizen for drug smuggling

so don't take any drug into china again.we chinese had been hurt because of drug and Opium War.sell drug in china would be punished serisely.so take yourself ,westerns...

IF you choose to go to a country where there is the death penalty, flogging, public hanging amongst other things you must first take responsibility for your own actions by educating yourself.
Take responsibility for your own actions.
In the Western countries it is probably true that the death penalty does not deter but China is neither in the west, nor does it want to be.
Stop feeling you have the right to enter these countries and enforce our rule or law, which lets face it, doesnt work either.
Those people against the death penalty for trafficking drugs may want to spend a time with the most drug ravaged of our citizens, see the heinous impact it has had on their, and their families.
Drug abuse is not a victimless crime.

To everyone here that keeps ignoring the fact that this mentally ill man may very well have been set up:

THERE IS A GOOD POSSIBILITY THAT THIS MAN WAS COMPLETELY INNOCENT AND WAS MURDERED WITHOUT A PROPER TRIAL AND/OR REGARD TO THE FACT THAT HE SUFFERED FROM MENTAL INSTABILITY WHICH MADE HIM THE PERFECT VICTIM.

I know this happens everyday but there is also a political issue that may have had play in this. China is none too happy with the UK these days, especially after the Copenhagen nonsense.

This is horrific on so many levels.

I for one think that people who traffic heroin will endanger thousands more lives than their 1 Sad day for his family, let it be know Asia DO NOT tolerate

CRIME and DRUGS:
1.) Users and abusers should be treated as a mental/health issue not as a crime or punishment. (This wastes too much money taxpayers don't have and will help them rather than make them worse.)
2.) All drugs should be legalized so that it will eliminate the black market just as it did when alcohol was illegal under the Al Capone days. Its proven to reduce the number of users because people would have a choice to ruin their life or not.
3.) Yes, there should be a death penalty for drug smugglers. Why? Because what they do costs thousands of lives and if this was done then it would send a message to the youth that death comes to those who choose that way of life. (Obviously someone else would replace the leader, but the point is to reduce the youth who find drug-trafficking as an easy access to wealth.)

Overall, we must take another approach unto facing drugs and crime because tough-guy management has not been working in America today. The drug war is a failure. This is the reality! Wake up people!

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-fg-britain-china30-2009dec30,0,4...

Outcry follows China's execution of Briton said to be mentally ill
'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,' Prime Minister Gordon Brown says.

By Janet Stobart

December 29, 2009 | 12:34 p.m.

Reporting from London - China's execution of British citizen Akmal Shaikh on drug dealing charges early Tuesday has provoked an outcry of revulsion around Britain.

Chinese ambassador Fu Ying was summoned to the British Foreign Office today for a terse 45-minute meeting with Foreign Office minister Ivan Lewis. A statement said the ambassador was called " to hear of the government's regret that Akmal Shaikh's mental health had been ignored by the Chinese judiciary despite repeated interventions by those with an interest in his case."

British officials say that over the last few weeks a flurry of pleas that China consider the mental stability of the 53-year-old prisoner were ignored by the Chinese government and judiciary.

"I had a difficult conversation with the Chinese ambassador today," Lewis said, after the morning meeting.

He said he told the ambassador that "the execution of Mr. Shaikh was totally unacceptable," adding that "China had failed in its basic human rights responsibilities in this case, in particular China's court had not considered the representations made about Mr. Shaikh's mental condition."

Shaikh's family had repeatedly said his behavior clearly showed he suffered from bipolar disorder. They were backed up by independent assessments from social workers in Poland, where Shaikh had lived for two years before his ill-fated trip to China in September 2007, where he was caught carrying nearly 9 pounds of heroin into the country. He was executed in Urumqi, in China's far northwestern Xinjiang province, the first European to be executed in China in half a century, activists say.

British government leaders made 27 separate pleas for clemency or commutation of the sentence in recent weeks, they said, including at an eleventh-hour meeting Sunday with Ying, the Chinese ambassador.

After the execution, 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. I am particularly concerned that no mental health assessment was undertaken."

Shaikh's daughter Leilla Hornsell, interviewed recently by the BBC, said her father had been approached by drug smugglers in Poland who convinced him he could be a pop star in China singing for world peace, and gave him a suitcase to carry into China.

"They recorded a song, and he can't sing, and the song itself is very, very bizarre, but they convinced him that they're going to take him to the clubs in China and make him a huge pop star," she said.

In a statement on behalf of the family, the legal human rights charity Reprieve said his relatives were "saddened, stunned and disappointed at the news of the execution."

Amnesty International said: "Under international human rights law, as well as Chinese law, a defendant's mental health can and should be taken into account. . . . It's simply not enough for the Chinese government to say, 'We did the right thing, trust us.' "

Stobart is a news assistant in the Times' London bureau.

This is wrong on so many levels, wrong that our government couldnt (so they say, we obviously know if they really wanted to they have the power) stop china from murdering one of its own citizens, and plus the fact that china executes people for drug smuggling, mind you, i can see britian becoming a similar place in the not too distant future

You have to have a couple of screws loose to smuggle drugs INTO China!

"Poor heroin dealer", come on, this dude may be challenged,but he's a drug dealer. Drug dealers are street smart, he knew the game. I have no sympathy for coke or heroin dealers. Legalize Pot !

This saddens me. I had hoped that China would not do this. There was enough doubt about Akmal Shaikh's guilt and his mental state to warrant a reassessment of this sentence. Shame on China.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-fg-china-execute29-2009dec29,0,3...

From The Los Angeles Times...

By John M. Glionna

December 28, 2009 - 10:24PM PT

China executes Briton said to be mentally ill

Akmal Shaikh had been caught smuggling heroin. His family says he suffered from bipolar disorder.

Reporting from Beijing - The Chinese government today executed a 53-year-old British citizen for drug smuggling, ignoring international pleas for clemency and claims by supporters that he was mentally ill, the British Foreign Office said.

Akmal Shaikh, a father of three with no criminal record, was the first European to be executed in China in half a century, activists say.

He was executed in Urumqi, in China's far northwestern Xinjiang province -- where he was caught in 2007 on a plane with nearly 9 pounds of heroin -- after a flurry of final-hour pleas to save his life. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown had also spoken to China's prime minister about the case.

British officials claim that Chinese judges did not take into account family claims that Shaikh suffered from bipolar disorder and failed to order a psychiatric evaluation, as required by law.

I think a message has been sent to the drug smuggling community. No means no.
http://www.topnflnews.com/

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/12/28/world/AP-AS-China-Britain-Dea.html?hp

Filed at 11:16 p.m. ET - The New York Times

BEIJING (AP) -- Britain says China has executed a Briton convicted of drug-smuggling after rejecting a string of appeals from the British government and his relatives who say the man was mentally unstable and unwittingly lured into the crime.

The British Foreign Office issued a statement Tuesday condemning the execution of 53-year-old Akmal Shaikh. He was the first European citizen executed in China in half a century.

Shaikh first learned his death sentence would be carried out from his visiting cousins on Monday, who made a last-minute plea for his life. They say he was mentally unstable and was lured to China from a life on the street in Poland by men playing on his dreams to record a pop song for world peace.

I fail to see how fair it is that a man is executed for drugs (while I don't condone the use of heroin, I don't see the need to kill people for it), yet China is allowed to use unfair working conditions on its people daily, yet no one is even convicted for that.

They didn't even take his mental state into consideration. The lack of human compassion that is running rampant worldwide is sickening to me.