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Akmal Shaikh, 53, a father-of-three from London, was executed on Tuesday after being convicted of drug smuggling despite claims he was mentally ill.

His execution went ahead despite repeated calls from his family and the British government for clemency.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8434344.stm

I personally agree that the death sentence should be used for smuggling 4kg of heroin

However, what is true is that China applies the death sentence very liberally and doesnt really care about the value of human life, Chinese or foreign.

They execute people for not paying taxes and taking bribes, not to mention how they imposed their rule in Tibet........so I wouldnt trust that everyone they execute is worthy of such a punishment

China executes more people every year than anywhere else in the world.

However, it's pretty obvious that the guy wasn't sane, if you read the whole story. Going to Poland to record a pop record to promote world peace - er HELLO!

Just goes to show, don't trust anyone that ever asks you to take anything anywhere, always lock your luggage, because unfortunately guys like the Chinese will just throw the book at you regardless. Their human rights are appalling, well they don't have any do they!

True china doles out the death penalty more easily than dubai police hands out traffic fines, but I was actually surprised that China went ahead with it, although Britains intervention was minimal.

Yes also true anyone with over 4kg of heroin does deserve it but really dunno much about the case. I'm from the school of thought that a gulity man set free is better than an innocent being found gulity and then punished specially with crimes carrying capital punishment.

Its actualy one of my fears/phobia to be done in for something I didn't do ! Guess been watching too many movies, but its not unheard of.

to control crime you got to have capital punishments and strict laws.

ok lets say this guy got 10 years in prison, who knows he might have turned a leaf but who knows he would have been the same guy 10 years before and once he is out he will end up supplying drugs to other people. so its good they decided to end his life here.

UK should have something like this to lower its crime rate.

I'm not disagreing that there should be capital and very harsh punishment, the recent case very close to home of the monster who raped and killed the 4 year old kid. He was a know repeat offender and had already spent time for past sexual crimes. One can only wonder if he hand'nt been let go after what was just a slap on the wrist this burtality could have been avoided is very evident.

But what I am saying people should be a billion percent sure before they send someone to the gallows. If the brit was actually guilty of the crime then by all means justice was served. I'm just wondering if the chinese just dole out the sentence like they usually do or did a proper full fledged investigation.

Maybe they did ? As he has been in custody for some time now. In china the sentence is usually carried out rigth after the judgement is passed . Well it atleast used to. Summary trials and quick executions. Usually right outside the court room

rudeboy wrote:to control crime you got to have capital punishments and strict laws.

ok lets say this guy got 10 years in prison, who knows he might have turned a leaf but who knows he would have been the same guy 10 years before and once he is out he will end up supplying drugs to other people. so its good they decided to end his life here.

UK should have something like this to lower its crime rate.

Going by your reasoning we should be executing people who steal 100 dhs, who knows maybe after 10 years they will steal again.

I also find it funny that the Chinese consider drugs so evil, but are extremely relaxed wrt smoking, would be interested to know how many chinese die of lung cancer as opposed to drug related deaths every year

Well not siding with the chinese but in my view two of the biggest evils we have in the world today are Drugs and Alcohol. Both should be banished from the face of this planet.

As i understand it, the guy met with some Polish people, and they saw him as the perfect "mule" for the drugs (due to his obvious mental state) - as mentioned above, the song he recorded was laughable to say the least (it needed more of a drum and bass sound, then perhaps it could have been marginally successful.....). They knew he had mental health issues, and played on his vulnerability to get him to carry the drugs into China. The British government apparently made about 29 different pleas in this case over the last two years, all rejected. A british psychologist was refused permission to meet with him to assess his mental state.

And China does have a very "loose" capital punishment policy - tax evasion and embezzlement are crimes likely to result in death too. It seems to any reasonable person in this case that the full facts were not investigated throughly enough, and that a better solution may have been to commute the death sentence to, say, 10 or 15 years in prison - that way nobody gets off scot free, and someone who was more than likely unable to take rational decisions on his own, and was easily influenced, would not have been put to death.

@ DD - you can get rid of drugs, but can you leave me a little bit of alcohol please!?

Hmmm.....if what said above is true then it surely is sad and a great injustice has been done. Like I said I dunno much about this whole issue. And also that people should be more than 100% sure before sending anyone to meet their maker.

This also shows just how much clout the brits have with china or just how far they are willing to go. I'm sure they don't want to upset the big economic giant too much.

Same views are echoed by his family too

"in a letter to the Guardian newspaper, his cousins Amina and Ridwan Shaikh lamented the lack of real British influence in the case.

"This is an example of Britain's powerlessness in the world. Their strategy of being shoulder to shoulder with the US in the 'war on terror' has not given them the status they so desperately desire," they said.

The cousins noted that "one of the justifications we are told for invading countries like Afghanistan is 'human rights violations'."

"If it is accepted by all that there are gross violations taking place in China, why aren't they, too, invaded? This is purely to do with the fact that China is a powerful country economically.

"Britain's economic dependence far outweighs these 'individual cases'.""

Some comments posted on You Tube


crawleygat37 (1 day ago) Show Hide
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Our Government (British) has got it wrong..AGAIN..!!! Im British/English, and Im GLAD this 'British' man has been killed. Its a shame we are soooo soft here in the UK. Drug dealers are selling DEATH. Its right they should be executed. Too bad WE dont do the same to terrorists, murderers, rapists, child molesters. drug dealers. GOOD for the Chinese on this issue..!! Too many left wing, HUMAN RIGHTS 'do gooders' here in the UK for our own good..!!! lITTLE WONDER our COUNTRY IS FALLING APART..!!



Avantime (3 hours ago) Show Hide
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This coming from the same British govt who WILLINGLY FREED Megrahi, the LOCKERBIE terrorist and mass murderer of 270 innocents, for health reasons.

I guess in Britain any criminal can get away with just about anything by claiming ill health or mental illness. The issue here is not whether Chinese justice is too tough, but whether British justice is too soft with criminals and terrorists getting away with serious crimes. No wonder Britain is a breeding place for terrorists like that Nigerian guy



xiaochuanq (17 hours ago) Show Hide
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1) Lots of guys claimed "mental ill" again and again. I am just wondering why British govt not to put evidences and proofs aboveboard to the public media or worldwide web? What's telling the lie?

2) How can a mentally ill person travel and live around the world without guardians of mentally normal families or friends. Let a crazy guy wander on the street alone is another crime. So, obviously British govt underestimated the intelligence of the people on this planet by telling a stupid lie.

3) There are lots of ways to save this person, should or should not, if the British govt really wants to. For example, say he is a special agent who needs to infiltrate a group of terrorists by bring them drugs. Or, secretly make some ammo trades. However, they yelled out to the world and use human right as an excuse. Everyone knows that China has no tolerances to drugs, even without mentioning opium wars. So, the premier is actually consuming this guy's death to win reputation and votes in UK.



Morndenkainen (18 hours ago) Show Hide
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Look at alot of musicians and listen to their lyrics. Marilyn Manson for example. The (man/woman?) has issues, but he's definatley intelligent. Michael Jackson, Issues up the wall, and no clue. People loved him. Had almost 600mil in debt at one point despite earning almost 100mil a year. Yet he was never deemed insane or incompetent. Point is, just because you write a bad song, doesnt mean you dont know what your doing and just because you dont have a clue, doesnt mean your nuts or incompetent.

You know I'm curious here...now none should expect any details from the Chinese gov. but maybe they should've investigated further. So what was this man gonna do with the heroin? Was he a delivery boy, or was he the agent? I wish China would submit more details on this.

MCL, China is too busy making cheap, defective, chemical laden products as well as smuggling bootleg DVDs OUT of the country to do a proper investigation.

@ MCL - Delivery boy. Without a doubt. You're absolutely right - they should have looked into this a lot further. The actual trial, i believe, lasted half an hour.....and without adequate translation (as it has been reported).

Regarding the Youtube comments.......Michael Jackson never deemed insane? Wacko Jacko? Are you kidding me!!!!

It was the SCOTTISH government that freed Megrahi, although the level of influence that the "UK" Government had in the decision will probably not be known for a long time (when the correspondence is released in 30 years or so). There were oil deals on the table, so no doubt economics played a part. Also, i think we upset them in Copenhagen, by accusing them of stalling the talks...no doubt that didn't help much. Plus, the situation is the opposite of what we are talking about here - a man, convited of a crime, was released on comassionate/health grounds, as he was confirmed to be terminally ill. Whereas in China, a man with (supposedly) a mental illness was put to death. If you read into it a bit, there is actually quite a bit of doubt as to whether Megrahi was indeed the "Lockerbie Bomber", or was just a Libyan agent who took the rap for it.

Shame that the relatives refer to British and Britain as "their" and "they" and not "our" and "us".....seems like their integration failed......

And i would suggest the breeding ground for the Nigerian was.....Nigeria. (In fact he was in Dubai "studying" for a few months this year also, before going to Yemen). No doubt though, he will have met up with like-minded people in the UK. That part is right - we are far too soft sometimes, but largely because we are restricted by having to observe people's "Human Rights", not something that happens in China......