They only had 5 convictions for drug smuggling this year, they must be doing something right.Quote:
Originally Posted by StrontiumDog
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They only had 5 convictions for drug smuggling this year, they must be doing something right.Quote:
Originally Posted by StrontiumDog
They should do it in the cities and towns across the UK. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Gerbil
Stephen Fry begs China to spare life of mentally ill Briton facing death by firing squad | Mail Online
would have thought Stepen Fry would have more pull than gormless gordon when it comes to the chinks, after all he is likely to be around longer than brown
Shoot the twat. Mental or not. Every piece of scum that deals in drug smuggling will pull the same alibi if they let this prick off.
Yeah I accept the other comments but their crispy duck is the bo[at][at]ocks
Enough said.Quote:
Originally Posted by Norton
Fury at China over refusal to pardon Briton
https://teakdoor.com/images/imported/2009/12/1339.jpg Akmal Shaikh was informed of his death sentence today. Photograph: Reprieve/PA
China faces fierce condemnation over its human rights record after refusing to grant a reprieve from the death penalty for a British man who his supporters say has mental health problems.
The Foreign Office minister Ivan Lewis tonight made a last-ditch attempt to prevent the execution of Akmal Shaikh, 53, making Britain's opposition to the death penalty clear in a phone call to his Chinese counterpart.
A Downing Street spokesman said the British government had done "everything within its power" to secure a fair trial and clemency on the death penalty for Shaikh, who was found guilty of drug smuggling in 2007. "The prime minister has intervened personally on a number of occasions: he has raised the case with premier Wen, most recently at the Copenhagen summit; and has written several times to President Hu," he said.
Shaikh is due to be executed at 10.30am local time today (2.30am British time) (9.30am Thai time)for smuggling 4kg (8.8lb) of heroin.
MPs criticised China's actions, but said the British government had done all it could in its appeals for a stay of execution. Ken Purchase, a former Foreign Office ministerial aide and a member of the foreign affairs select committee, called China's actions "absolutely regrettable", adding that the country was trying to position itself in the mainstream of international affairs while persisting with "barbaric actions".
Gisela Stuart, a former Labour minister who also sits on the foreign affairs select committee, said: "When it comes to questions of human rights in China there is still the most enormous gap."
Shaikh was informed of his death sentence today 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.
In a statement after the meeting, they said: "He was obviously very upset on hearing from us of the sentence that was passed. 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 as well as the healing love from his family."
The family filed a last-minute petition for a stay of execution and an application for a special pardon to the supreme court, the Chinese president, Hu Jintao, and the standing committee of the people's national congress.
Shaikh, a father of three, was arrested in Urumqi in September 2007 and charged with drug smuggling. After being convicted he lost a final appeal last week, but campaigners claim his mental illness has not been 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 as 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 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," he said.
Gareth Saunders, a British teacher and musician, said it would have been "totally typical of him to fall for some kind of story that some drug dealer might spin to him concerning making his record in China".
Dr Martin Harris, Shaikh's GP, also contacted the charity and said any involvement with drug smuggling would be "totally out of character". Shaikh's daughter Leilla Horsnell said the decision to keep her father's fate from him until 24 hours before the scheduled execution on "humanitarian grounds" was positive because of his mental state.
She told the BBC: "I don't think him being told would mean anything … if anything, it might make it worse if he was aware of what was happening."
If the sentence is carried out, it would be the first time an EU national has been executed in China for 50 years.
Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman, said Europe had to step up pressure against China and the US against the death penalty. "This only confirms China's appalling human rights record and how far the international campaign against the death penalty needs to go," he said.
A vigil to raise awareness of his plight is taking place in London today outside the Chinese embassy in central London.
A spokesman for the embassy said Shaikh had been found with more than 4kg of heroin, which he said was enough to kill 26,800 people. Being caught with 50g of heroin was enough for the death penalty to be applied in Chinese law, he said. "Even in the UK, he would be punished severely for his crime," the spokesman said. British concerns had "been duly noted", he said.
There was little sympathy for Shaikh in China, but there was resentment in some quarters at Britain's perceived attempt to interfere. Jia Qinggao, deputy chief of the school of international relations at Peking University, accused the UK and other wealthy nations of double standards.
"When governments in the west turn down China's request for extradition of suspects, they cite the importance of judicial independence and a separation of powers," he told the Global Times. "But when it comes to their own citizens, they ask the Chinese government to interfere with judicial independence."
There was little online discussion of the case. Most tweets and blogs were in favour of carrying out the death penalty.
"If Akmal was reprieved, it would set an example that would encourage psychopaths from all over the world to gather in China and sell that lucrative white powder," wrote a blogger with the name Pet Show Killer on the Tianya internet news forum.
A single message of support, headed "Pay silence tribute to brother Akmal Shaikh", was deleted.
only if you trust the integrity of the system. The death penalty in China can be a convenient means for removal of enemies...and organ harvesting, apparently.Quote:
Originally Posted by taxexile
the strength of the conviction is always the problem with the death penalty.Quote:
only if you trust the integrity of the system
Akmal Shaikh's harebrained business schemes and dreams of pop stardom
British man due to be executed in China could be bipolar or schizophrenic says doctors,
Monday 28 December 2009 18.38 GMT
https://teakdoor.com/images/imported/2009/12/1339.jpg Photograph: Reprieve/PA
Akmal Shaikh's journey from a minicab business in north London to death row in a remote part of north-west China is a labyrinthine tale involving eastern European gangsters, harebrained business schemes and a dream of international pop stardom.
It began in Kentish Town, north London, where Shaikh lived with his British wife and children. The couple ran a cab firm called Teksi on Fortess Road, close to Kentish Town tube station, and life appeared to be good.
Shaikh's former solicitor, Bruce Hayim, told the Observer earlier this year that Shaikh was once a "charming and charismatic man" – though the legal campaign group Reprieve insist he has "a lifelong history of very strange behaviour". His older brother, Akbar, said his sibling had shown signs of mental illness in 2001 after his first marriage had ended and "as he grew older he seemed to go off the rails". In 2004, he was accused of sexually harassing a female member of staff and ordered to pay £10,000 in unpaid wages and damages by an employment tribunal, according to his local paper, the Hampstead and Highgate Express.
But in 2005 Shaikh's life started to unravel further. He suddenly packed his bags and left for Poland, says his brother, where he announced plans to set up an airline despite having no means to do so. Given his complete lack of money, business plan or experience in the aviation industry, the venture soon foundered, but he was undeterred.
Having turned his back on his family, he stayed on, sometimes sleeping rough, moving from Lublin in the east to the capital, Warsaw. At some point he acquired a girlfriend, who told the Observer she soon became concerned by his "really silly and crazy" behaviour, such as the time he sent her a fake letter purporting to show he had won £1m.
He then started a prolonged email campaign, sharing his delusions with celebrities and government officials he had never met, firing off endless dispatches typed in an enormous 72-point font. Hundreds of emails sent by Shaikh to the British embassy in Warsaw from 2005 reveal the state of his mind. In the messages, obtained by Reprieve, he claimed to have spoken to the angel Gabriel and explained that he could have foiled the July 7 bombings in 2005, had he only been allowed to hold a press conference. One email appeared to be a letter to Father Christmas.
Some messages were copied in to a group of 74 organisations and individuals, including Tony Blair, Sir Paul McCartney, George W Bush and the BBC programme Top Gear.
But among the nonsense contained in the emails was information Shaikh's lawyers claim proves he had become involved with criminals who took advantage of his vulnerability. One mentioned a character called Carlos, who was going to help Shaikh achieve his dream of making it big in the music industry. Carlos, wrote Shaikh, had excellent contacts, and he knew a producer in Kyrgyzstan who could help him fulfil his dream of becoming a pop star. Though Shaikh had no singing experience, and even less musical talent, he recorded a song, an off-key track in English, Arabic and Polish called Come Little Rabbit, which, according to Reprieve, he truly believed had the potential to bring about world peace.
Today, two men who helped Shaikh record the song said it was clear he was psychiatrically ill. Gareth Saunders, a British teacher and musician who sang back-up on the song, said, "he clearly thought this song was going to have a very positive impact on the world".
He added: "It would be totally unlike him to get mixed up in drugs. However, it would be totally typical of him to fall for some kind of story that some drug dealer might spin to him concerning making his record in China … He would be so desperate for human contact that if some shady character came up to him to talk, Akmal would have gone on and on about his song, and it would have been easy for someone to see that he could be exploited."
It is Shaikh's case that back in 2007, "Carlos" told him that he knew people in the music industry that could assist and in September that year paid for a flight for Shaikh to Kyrgyzstan. There, his passport was taken by a gang of men – an act which did not unduly worry Shaikh, who believed he would soon be so famous that he would be recognised at every border crossing. When his passport was eventually returned, he was introduced to a man called Okole. This man, Shaikh claims he was told, ran a huge nightclub in China that would be the perfect venue for the debut performance of Come Little Rabbit.
En route to China, the two men stopped in Dushanbe, in Tajikistan, where they stayed in a five-star hotel – which Reprieve say Shaikh believed was a sign of his celebrity status. There, Okole told him he would have to fly to China alone as the flight was full. Shaikh claims Okole gave him a suitcase and promised to follow on the next flight.
On 12 September 2007, Shaikh flew into Urumqi and was stopped by customs officials on arrival. He was searched and his baggage scanned. Two packets containing around £250,000 worth of heroin were found in his luggage.
Shaikh told the officials that he did not know anything about the drugs, and that the suitcase did not belong to him. Reprieve say he helped the Chinese authorities with their inquiries and even set up a "sting" operation, telling Chinese officials to wait for Okole as he was due to arrive on the next plane. But Okole never turned up and Shaikh was arrested.
Though he was sentenced to death shortly after, the Foreign Office was not notified for many months, and in August 2008, Reprieve took on the case.
Chinese law says a defendant's mental state should be taken into consideration if they are accused of serious crimes, but the Chinese authorities have refused repeated requests for Shaikh to be evaluated by a doctor. At his first appeal hearing this May, Shaikh insisted on reading a long, rambling and often incoherent statement to the court. His performance was so strange that judges laughed.
Though he has never been assessed by a psychiatrist, Foreign Office officials were eventually allowed to spend 15 minutes with Shaikh. From their description of Shaikh's behaviour, Dr Peter Schaapveld, a London-based consultant clinical and forensic psychologist, compiled a medical report in which he was able to deduce with "99% certainty" that he was suffering from a mental disorder that could either be bipolar or schizophrenia. Despite that diagnosis, at 2.30am, Shaikh is due to be put to death.
We will never get to hear that song now.Quote:
The witnesses all say Mr Shaikh was clearly mentally disturbed and was fixated on recording a song that he believed would usher in world peace.
Quite sad really.
Fury as China executes British drug smuggler
Fierce condemnation as last-ditch attempt to prevent death of Akmal Shaikh, 53, fails
Alexandra Topping, Nicholas Watt and Jonathan Watts in Beijing
The Guardian, Tuesday 29 December 2009
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 shot dead by a firing squad 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.
In what was described as a "full and frank exchange of views", the Foreign Office minister Ivan Lewis asked Fu Ying for clemency and outlined Britain's concern that China had not taken Shaikh's mental health into consideration.
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.
Speaking after meeting the ambassador, in Britain's 27th representation to China on the case, Lewis said: "China fully understands the strength of feeling in this country and around the world."
But the ambassador made clear that the Chinese judiciary was independent of the government and that the supreme court had made its decision. On Shaikh's mental health, she said all his paperwork had been fed into the judicial process, which had now taken its course.
As MPs lined up to criticise China's action, a spokesman for the embassy said Shaikh had been found with more than 4kg of heroin, and being caught with 50g of heroin was enough for the death penalty under Chinese law.
Downing Street said Britain had done "everything within its power" to secure a fair trial and clemency for Shaikh, who was found guilty of drug smuggling in 2007. "The prime minister has intervened personally on a number of occasions: he has raised the case with Premier Wen [Jiabao], most recently at the Copenhagen summit, and has written several times to President Hu [Jintao]," a spokesman said.
MPs were scathing about China. Ken Purchase, a former Foreign Office ministerial aide and a member of the Commons foreign affairs select committee, called China's actions "absolutely regrettable", adding that the country was trying to position itself in the mainstream of international affairs while persisting with "barbaric actions".
Gisela Stuart, a former Labour minister who also sits on the foreign affairs select committee, said: "When it comes to questions of human rights in China there is still the most enormous gap."
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."
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2009
Fury as China executes British drug smuggler | World news | The Guardian
Correction... make 'Come Little Rabbit' number 1...Quote:
Originally Posted by rawlins
Shame it was too late for the Christmas release.
In spite of all the condemnation, outrage, and criticism it ends in predictable form. Perhaps a better outcome for Mr. Shaikh would have resulted had those politicos spouting their displeasure actually taken positive action to "punish" China by cutting off all business and diplomatic relationships with the UK.Quote:
Originally Posted by DrB0b
Reckon they haven't yet learned China simply ignores criticism regarding human rights if there is no action taken to hurt them economically. Or more likely they have learned and decided it's not in the "best interest" of the UK.
Good riddance to the drug smuggling scum
Their country
Their laws,
Their rules.
Good on em!!
nobody elses business!
Do the crime, do the time or in this case, BANG
Hurray the Chinks popped the twat this morning. Good on yer me old China.
Drug smuggling?
...and we care about this, exactly, why?
BBC news website said sources from China say he would of died by lethal injection
i say bullshit. more likely shot at the back of the neck with a blindfold on, but told he died in a kind way not to upset the family he died in a gruesome way
Because a 30 minute trial of a mentally ill man which ends in a death sentence and an appeal in which the judges laugh at the appellant is hardly justice.Quote:
Originally Posted by DaffyDuck
BTW, if I call you a drug smuggler, or tell the police that you're a drug smuggler, does that make you a drug smuggler? There seems to be a lot of people on this forum with over-developed gullibility glands, perhaps it comes from the desire shown by so many to lick the boot that kicks them?
Why should it be bullshit? Lethal injection is now used in most of China although the first report I saw said that he was executed by firing squad. I doubt the Chinese authorities are particularly sensitive of relatives feelings, didn't they used to bill the realtives for the bullets when they executed by shooting? And I doubt that his family will find much consolation in the fact that he died from being poisoned (BTW, lethal injection is NOT kind, a rather strange word to attach to an execution anyway) rather than from being shot.Quote:
Originally Posted by WujouMao
Obviously crazy He'd have got a much better price for it in europe
Why would they shoot him in the back of the head after blindfolding him ? They only blindfold you so you don't see your executioners to your front and they don't see the look in your eyes. A bit off putting for both party's really.Quote:
Originally Posted by WujouMao
It does if you were tried by a court and found guilty, as in this case.Quote:
Originally Posted by DrB0b