Mentally ill Briton faces 'execution
in days' in China
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Esther Addley
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 13 October 2009 22.27 BST
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A mentally ill British man could be executed in China within days, after
the country's foreign ministry said today his appeal against the death
penalty for drug smuggling had been rejected.
Lawyers for Akmal Shaikh, a 53-year-old father of five from Kentish Town,
north London, fear he may be shot imminently and without warning, despite
the personal intervention of Gordon Brown in making representations for
clemency to the Chinese authorities. His lawyers say he suffers from
delusional psychosis and bipolar disorder and that he was set up by drug
smugglers at the time of his arrest in 2007, while carrying heroin in a
suitcase.
Shaikh's case will go through one last legal stage, a hearing before the
People's supreme court, before the sentence can be carried out. The
court's hearings are swift and often largely procedural, according to
Reprieve, the anti-death penalty legal charity representing Shaikh.
Clive Stafford Smith, Reprieve's director, described the situation as "a
very dire moment". "Mr Shaikh's British passport promises him 'such
protection and assistance as may be necessary'. It is crucial that the
British government ... formally intervene in the Chinese supreme court
to get him a fair hearing."
The Foreign Office said the government was "greatly concerned to hear that
the death sentence has been maintained", adding it had "already made
representations to the Chinese authorities at the highest levels;
representations continue in both China and London. The prime minister has
taken a personal interest in the case and has raised it several times with
the Chinese leadership."
The actor Stephen Fry, who suffers from bipolar disorder, recorded a
statement of support yesterday, calling Shaikh's sentence "manifestly
unfair".
The confirmation that Shaikh's appeal to the district court had been
rejected came an hour after his brother, Akbar, made an emotional appeal
at a press conference to the Chinese authorities "to show compassion to
my brother, because he is clearly not of sound mind". He said Akmal, who
has five children, had run a successful taxi firm in north London and been
a "kind" family man, " but somewhere along the line, and we still can't
work out what happened, something went wrong". He became irrational and
then delusional and refused all offers of help, before moving to Poland
five years ago, where he stopped contacting the family. They knew nothing
of him until being informed of his sentence in China.
His voice trembling , Akbar said his disabled mother knew Akmal had been
arrested, but not the sentence.
"She doesn't know any further developments, because I don't want any
further news to affect her health," he said.
Shaikh was arrested on 12 September 2007 in Urumqi, northwest China,
carrying 4kg of heroin in his luggage. He told officials he had been given
the case in Kyrgyzstan by a man who had promised to make him a pop star
in China. Reprieve says that it is clear "that Akmal became involved in
all this for delusional reasons" and that his mental illness had been
manipulated by professional drug smugglers. He had moved to Poland telling
friends he planned to start an airline despite having little money, and
was, according to his former lawyer, "severely mentally disturbed". He
had become homeless, according to his lawyers, by the time a man named
Carlos promised to introduce him to people in Kyrgystan who could make
him famous.
The organisationhas obtained hundreds of highly disturbed emails Akmal
sent to the British embassy in Warsaw during his time in Poland. Though
he has never been medically assessed, as repeated requests to the Chinese
to allow him to see doctors have been refused, a preliminary report by
Dr Peter Schaapveld, a consultant psychologist, concluded Shaikh suffers
from bipolar disorder, and was suffering from "delusional psychosis" when
caught.
Though he was sentenced to death in December 2007, the Foreign Office was
not notified until 11 months later. The Chinese foreign ministry said the
British embassy and Reprieve had proposed "a mental disease check-up for
Akmal Shaikh but they didn't give any evidence of Akmal Shaikh's possible
mental disease. Akmal Shaikh himself said his family do not have a history
of mental diseases."