Chinese court confirms British drug smuggler’s death sentence

BEIJING - China’s Supreme People’s Court Tuesday said that it had approved the death sentence against Akmal Shaikh, a British man who was convicted of smuggling drugs into China.

Shaikh, 53, was caught carrying up to 4,030 grams of heroin at the international airport of Urumqi in northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous from Dushanbe, capital of Tajikistan, on Sep 12, 2007, Xinhua news agency reported.

He was sentenced to death by the Intermediate People’s Court of Urumqi Oct 29, 2008 and the final verdict came this October after two failed appeals.

China’s criminal law stipulates that people trafficking more than 50 grams of heroin are to be sentenced to death.