CHIGWELL: Family devastated by cousin's execution (From East London and West Essex Guardian Series)
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CHIGWELL: Family devastated by cousin's execution
12:31pm Tuesday 29th December 2009 in
A FAMILY in Chigwell has been left “devastated” following the execution of their relation in China.
Seema Khan, 54, of Bracken Drive, and her brother Latif Shaikh, 41, also of Chigwell, spearheaded the high-profile campaign to save their mentally ill cousin Akmal Shaikh after he was sentenced to death following a conviction for drug smuggling.
But despite international outrage, and the intervention of Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Mr Shaikh was killed by lethal injection at 10.30am on Tuesday amid defiance by Chinese officials.
Ms Khan, who was extremely close to Mr Shaikh and spent her childhood growing up with him, was inconsolable with grief following his death, but a statement released by a representative on her behalf said: "The family express their grief at the Chinese decision to refuse mercy and thank all those who tried hard to bring about a different result."
Prior to his execution, she told reporters: “He's not rational and needs medication. A pardon would allow him to get the help he needs.
“We pray he will be reprieved. He'd never knowingly be involved in something like this.”
Mr Shaikh, a 53-year-old father of three, was caught with 4kg of heroin in a suitcase in the north western Chinese city of Urumqi in September 2007.
His family claim Mr Shaikh was exploited and tricked into carrying the drugs because of his bi-polar mental disorder, but a spokesman for the Chinese embassy in London said they had never received any evidence that Mr Shaikh suffered from mental difficulties.
Sally Rowen, of human rights charity Reprieve, which has been spearheading the campaign, said: "The death of Akmal Shaikh is a sad indictment of today's world, and particularly of China's legal system.
"Akmal was a gentle man who suffered from a tormenting illness. He slipped through the cracks of society and was betrayed and deliberately killed by one of the most powerful nations on earth.”
A Chinese Government spokesman said: "The amount of heroin he brought into China was 4030g, enough to cause 26,800 deaths, threatening numerous families.
"According to the Chinese law, 50g of heroin is the threshold for death penalty. It is important that the independence of the Chinese judiciary be respected.”
Comments(33)
Heartlysmum
says...
8:49am Wed 30 Dec 09
We are too weak in this country, all this mental health nonsense is just an excuse, line them all up and shoot them save a fortune in keeping them in luxury incarceration.
Chinese drug taking population has been reduced dramatically so more lies from the hand wringing apologists.
mr rusty
says...
12:42pm Wed 30 Dec 09
word of mouth
says...
1:13pm Wed 30 Dec 09
word of mouth
says...
1:13pm Wed 30 Dec 09
Heartlysmum
says...
2:18pm Wed 30 Dec 09
Nobody examined this druggie over here to declare he had bipolar he was assessed from afar .
As for all that I have told airport security about bags left unattended you are either paranoid or something else.
as a frequent flier airport security is as such that you have to declare that you have packed the bags that you are are flying with. Most airlines accept up to 20 Kg. this nutter had 4 Kg. of drugs it was not as though someone slipped it into his suitcase unnoticed.
If any relative of mine dippy or not planned to unload drugs capable of killing thousands of people then they get what is coming to them, even his wife did not want to know about his fate.
Some people do not deserve human rights they become inhuman by their behavior.
Debdenite
says...
2:24pm Wed 30 Dec 09
Heartlysmum
says...
3:03pm Wed 30 Dec 09
Debdenite
says...
3:31pm Wed 30 Dec 09
Because they were ill, not because they were bad.
"As for the family concern they had nothing to do with him for years he was a total loser and the case for mental illness is not proved"
You have great faith in the judicial system of a country that is run by a communist dictatorship that willfully killed millions of its own citizens through starvation and mass executions. A mentally ill person is often unable to understand that they are ill, particularly if they are severely deluded, eg believing that their song about rabbits will bring about world peace. Even when someone wants help for mental illness, it is difficult to get medical care, particularly if you end up sleeping rough in Poland.
"a little more concerned for all the innocents blighted by these scummy drug dealers."
I have a great deal of sympathy for the victims of the drugs trade, some of whom are troubled, broken people like Akmal Shaikh. He is as much a victim as a heroin user - and addicts are often pushers and mules, desperately earning money for fixes. The people who benefit the most are not nobodies like Akmal Shaikh but very powerful and very violent crime bosses who have their own private armies and who have corrupt officials in their pockets. You cannot sneeze in China without a Communist party member or police informant knowing about it, so why is heroin addiction a growing problem there? Endemic corruption and an inept judicial system in China will ensure that the heroin trade will continue unabated and justice will never be done.
mr rusty
says...
3:57pm Wed 30 Dec 09
Heartlysmum
says...
4:28pm Wed 30 Dec 09
That's another typical response from the apologists, when it ain't going your way throw in a red herring. Let's cloud the waters with the Guildford 4 etc.
Just been out in the rain to get some energy saving bulbs, I am now enlightened. As for Gary, I as a computer competent am fully aware of his crime, yes it is a crime to hack into the USA defence computer, no excuses. Let him face up to his crime and not hide.
Heroin problem in China is not a growing problem because they execute the dealers, use has been falling and is now about half of what it has been.
Millions are not now starving as the Chinese government bought in birth control, something that needs to happen in other places around the world.
Debdenite
says...
5:14pm Wed 30 Dec 09
You may think mentally ill people who suffer from psychosis and delusions and do bizarre and wrong things are expendable, should have no human rights and deserve no compassion. But I think you are just some naive person who has little experience with the wider world and how it works. Either that or you are completely heartless.
Heartlysmum
says...
5:39pm Wed 30 Dec 09
Compassion where it is due. Do not deny a man his religion if he doesn't want to thrust it down my neck, take care not to frighten the horses, that's me.
I did not suggest Tiananmen was anything to do with starvation that was the put down of a counterrevolution to assert the rights of the pro democracy movement..
If the population had been allowed to expand at its old rate then many more people would be starving.
I support pro democracy but the big mistake is assuming it fits all cultures, as an example Afghanistan has always been tribal and will remain so for the foreseeable future.
We are not all equal.
Debdenite
says...
10:21pm Wed 30 Dec 09
I assume that by 'pathetic' you mean anyone with a mental illness. Are you prejudiced or just plain thick? If someone is out of their mind, how on earth can they be responsible for their actions? Or perhaps you don't care, kill them and it helps keep the population down and rids society of the dross, right? There was a government in Germany that practised exactly this policy.
"We are not all equal."
That's fine when you are not subject to a judicial system that is condemned by UN special rapporteurs and leading human rights organisations such as Amnesty International. It's fine to accept inequality when you are sitting in your comfortable armchair with your home appliances, fattened up with your Christmas turkey. But if you were broken psychologically, on death row or facing torture for your beliefs, perhaps you might feel different. There is a charter of human rights every government in the world has signed up to, including China. And while it does not advocate any political system, it does enshrine our human rights and it is a measure by which we should judge all governments, regardless of their wealth. In the case of Akmal Shaikh and so many others in China, there is a strong case that human rights are being routinely and systematically abused by the authorities. And we shuld hold them to account, particularly when it is a British citizen.
w-evr
says...
12:55am Thu 31 Dec 09
China has spoken and acted, It has strict rules and regulations that have been broken, the penalties are clear be they right or wrong.
If this man was mentally ill then maybe its our own system that let him be able to commit his crime, There are so many different factors applicable to this case that the right or wrongs can not be decided easily, what is clear is the pro - democracy and human right comments are contradictory in their terms by their refusal to recognise, not understand but recognise the opposite opinion to theirs, who is now guilty of their own accusations?
We the West are sending our own people to war with massive casualties on both sides, many lives lost not just one with every bullet that is fired being a potential death penalty for someone, just for their job or belief let alone drug trafficking.
The story of this case superseded a British soldier being shot in the headlines, we have backed campaigns that are directly decimating the poppy fields and drug factories that make this very drug in concurrence with the war on terror, So we can target the manufacturers but moan when another country targets the traffickers?
There are rights and wrongs on both sides, as always and there is a big concern that maybe a 53 year old man that was going to seek a pop career in China might have been missed by our own mental health system?
The family will grieve and be angry that's natural, the same as every family watches a loved one die to drugs will grieve and be angry.
We are fighting an extradition of another British citizen to America, America carries the Death penalty for certain crimes and we are handing over a mentally ill patient with Münchhausen s to them, I am not saying he will face the death penalty but the principal of a British Citizen being handed willingly to a nation that carries these penalties would seemingly put the complaints of the current situation into the realms of hypocrisy.
To implement a global human rights law and be able to enforce it you need a Global Earth government, That thankfully failed at Copenhagen recently with China being one of the main objectors to a significant part of the nonsense. The same politicians are again at loggerheads with this case. It was highly likely that China was going to flex its muscles after Copenhagen was it not?
Honestly, realistically, the chances of China paying the slightest interest to what Britain wants, when it is against what they stand for is simply silly so arguing the toss over it is useless.
If we had a stricter penal system over here that meant the prisoner would have served a penalty, such as Life imprisonment in a tough prison possibly maybe they might have considered releasing him to us. If they did under the current penal system he would probably be out in a couple of years if he served a sentence at all! That would be a serious embarrassment for the Chinese system, again we could be at fault!
Debdenite
says...
12:20pm Thu 31 Dec 09
Er, no, the complaint is that a man with a serious mental illness has lost his life due to a miscarriage of justice. Nobody is saying that drug traffickers should not be prosecuted, just that in this case there were circumstances in this particular case that the courts in China were unwilling to acknowledge.
"It was highly likely that China was going to flex its muscles after Copenhagen was it not?"
He was convicted before the Copenhagen summit.
"To implement a global human rights law and be able to enforce it you need a Global Earth government"
We have the United Nations. I wish it was more forceful in the case of human rights abuse. Its forces stood by and watched the genocide of Muslims in Bosnia and the genocides in Rwanda and Congo. Maybe not a global government, but certainly a mandate to intervene. But the Chinese communist regime has continually vetoed this in the Security Council because it is a long-standing world-leader in human rights abuse and finds genocide tolerable.
"If we had a stricter penal system over here that meant the prisoner would have served a penalty, such as Life imprisonment in a tough prison possibly maybe they might have considered releasing him to us."
There is a system in place to do just this. A similar situation arose this year with Samantha Obrator in Laos, following a trial with serious procedural flaws. She was sentenced to death for drug trafficking, but after getting pregnant in prison had her sentence reduced to life imprisonment. She was transferred to the UK and is in prison in Holloway jail.
mr rusty
says...
12:41pm Thu 31 Dec 09
Mr Shaikh may or may not have known what he was doing, trouble is because the chinese authorities refused to do any form of even rudimentary mental health examination, something which would be normal procedure here even for someone banged up in the cells for the night, we'll never know.
In all the reporting, that I've read anyway, it's not even clear how he supposedly got 4k of smack onto a plane. Oh, and have a look on youtube, the rabbit song is now on there-have a look...now, it may have just been an elaborate plan by Mr Shaikh to appear nutty, but surely it's an indication that he may not be the full ticket and hence warrant further examination!
Heartlysmum
says...
1:08pm Thu 31 Dec 09
There is no proof that this drug dealer had a serious mental illness and lost his life to a miscarriage of justice.
How many people have been killed by murderers (all mentally ill to have committed this crime) been released later and gone on to commit a major crime again? Just over 6%.
http://www.dailyexpr
ess.co.uk/posts/view
/87670
Reserve your sympathies for these victims.
mr rusty
says...
1:59pm Thu 31 Dec 09
The real issue is how chinese 'law' operates...remember, China is a state that as recently as 1995 was still enacting controversial eugenic laws: look 'em up, and thank your stars that you live in a civilised country.
Heartlysmum
says...
4:50pm Thu 31 Dec 09
Of course I do not agree with the way the Chinese interpret if at all human rights. Look at how they treated the Tibetans that is appalling, but they are too big to argue with, the rest of thye world had better wake up to the fact.
Ulysses31
says...
8:20pm Thu 31 Dec 09
Heartlysmum
says...
8:29pm Thu 31 Dec 09
Not conjusive to harvesting organs.
Ulysses31
says...
8:39pm Thu 31 Dec 09
Heartlysmum wrote:You're right if that's what they actually did and I'm not medically knowledged enough to know how many organs or body parts are toxicated by the injection and if the effect is permanent. They buried him immediately with no autopsy or coroners report. You can never be certain how truthfull these secretive regimes are, I don't think they even disclosed where they buried him.
If they were to harvest his organs he would have been shot in the head, he was injected with a cocktail of noxious substances. Not conjusive to harvesting organs.
Heartlysmum
says...
9:44pm Thu 31 Dec 09
http://www.dailymail
.co.uk/news/worldnew
s/article-1239471/Ak
mal-Shaikhs-desolate
-tomb-pictured-time.
html
mr resident2
says...
3:30am Fri 1 Jan 10
Debdenite
says...
12:44pm Fri 1 Jan 10
mr resident2 wrote:You have such great faith in the Chinese justice system. Presumably you have similar faith in the British justice system. Or do you just enjoy executions? You are depraved.
Debdenite you are a fool. Akmal Shaikh deserved all that he got. Those of you who are arguing against the punishment of a drug dealer, you should be ashamed of yourselves.
Debdenite
says...
12:51pm Fri 1 Jan 10
mr resident2
says...
3:43am Sat 2 Jan 10
Debdenite
says...
11:08am Sat 2 Jan 10
mr resident2 wrote:Is that the best you can do? I note that your previous comment was made at 3:30am on 1 January and the latest was written at 3:43am on 2 January. You appear to be someone who spends all night on the internet, even on New Year Day! I know that Nazis tend not to have many friends, but this is just sad.
Debdenite you certainly are a strange one! Your writings reveal a very lonely person indeed.
Is your name Paul, by the way?
Johnny Boy
says...
12:32pm Sat 2 Jan 10
larry g
says...
11:08pm Sat 2 Jan 10
jamjay
says...
8:59pm Fri 8 Jan 10
It makes for fascinating reading, copy & paste...
http://en.wikipedia.
org/wiki/Akmal_Shaik
h
mr resident2
says...
1:35pm Sun 17 Jan 10
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Akmal Shaikh, who has been executed for smuggling drugs in China. Photo: Luis Belmonte/Reprieve
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Debdenite says...
8:47pm Tue 29 Dec 09