Britain will step up pressure on China in coming days to show clemency for a Briton set to be executed for drug smuggling, with ties already strained over a spat on the climate conference.
Akmal Shaikh, 53, whose family and supporters say he probably has bipolar disorder, faces the death penalty next week after losing his final appeal on Monday in China’s Supreme Court, his lawyers said.
If carried out, Shaikh would become the first citizen from what is now a EU member nation to be executed in China in 50 years, according to the lawyers from the charity Reprieve.
“We can confirm that Chinese authorities have informed us that Akmal Shaikh is due to be executed on 29 December,” a British Foreign Office spokesman said on Monday. “We are alarmed and deeply concerned at this news.”
Shaikh, from London, was arrested in 2007 in Urumqi with 4kg of heroin. Campaigners say he was duped by a gang into carrying a suitcase for them.
The Foreign Office said Chinese officials had not taken Shaikh’s mental health into account despite repeated requests by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, government ministers and the EU.
Brown pressed the case to Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) in a telephone call earlier this month, officials have said.
Reprieve said it had medical evidence that Shaikh, who is married with three children, suffered from a delusion that he was going to China to record a hit single that would usher in world peace.
The Philippine Department of Justice yesterday labeled Vice President Sara Duterte the “mastermind” of a plot to assassinate the nation’s president, giving her five days to respond to a subpoena. Duterte is being asked to explain herself in the wake of a blistering weekend press conference where she said she had instructed that Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr be killed should an alleged plot to kill her succeed. “The government is taking action to protect our duly elected president,” Philippine Undersecretary of Justice Jesse Andres said at yesterday’s press briefing. “The premeditated plot to assassinate the president as declared by the self-confessed mastermind
Texas’ education board on Friday voted to allow Bible-infused teachings in elementary schools, joining other Republican-led US states that pushed this year to give religion a larger presence in public classrooms. The curriculum adopted by the Texas State Board of Education, which is controlled by elected Republicans, is optional for schools to adopt, but they would receive additional funding if they do so. The materials could appear in classrooms as early as next school year. Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott has voiced support for the lesson plans, which were provided by the state’s education agency that oversees the more than
Ireland, the UK and France faced travel chaos on Saturday and one person died as a winter storm battered northwest Europe with strong winds, heavy rain, snow and ice. Hampshire Police in southern England said a man died after a tree fell onto a car on a major road near Winchester early in the day. Police in West Yorkshire said they were probing whether a second death from a traffic incident was linked to the storm. It is understood the road was not icy at the time of the incident. Storm Bert left at least 60,000 properties in Ireland without power, and closed
CONSPIRACIES: Kano suspended polio immunization in 2003 and 2004 following claims that polio vaccine was laced with substances that could render girls infertile Zuwaira Muhammad sat beside her emaciated 10-month-old twins on a clinic bed in northern Nigeria, caring for them as they battled malnutrition and malaria. She would have her babies vaccinated if they regain their strength, but for many in Kano — a hotbed of anti-vaccine sentiment — the choice is not an obvious one. The infants have been admitted to the 75-bed clinic in the Unguwa Uku neighbourhood, one of only two in the city of 4.5 million run by French aid agency Doctors Without Borders (MSF). Kano has the highest malaria burden in Nigeria, but the city has long