Briton convicted of drug smuggling executed in China
By IANSTuesday, December 29, 2009
BEIJING - A British national convicted of drug smuggling was executed Tuesday in China, despite international pleas for clemency.
Akmal Shaikh, 53, was executed at 10.30 a.m. in Urumqi, in China’s western region of Xinjiang, the British embassy in Beijing confirmed, reports DPA.
Shaikh’s family had made pleas for clemency, saying that he suffered from bipolar disorder, a mental illness, and was manipulated by a drug gang into smuggling the heroin.
Earlier Tuesday, China’s Supreme People’s Court said that it had approved the death sentence against Akmal Shaikh.
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.
