DISQUS

An_American_Karol · 2 months ago

Until we clean our own house, we can not tell someone how to clean there's.
I would suggest we are in good company by carrying out the death penalty in this country... /snark.

leliorisen · 2 months ago

Hmm, if I didn't know better, I would swear that China was becoming as barbaric as....Texas.

aikana · 2 months ago

Is the the death penalty all that much worse than imprisonment without charges and tortured indefinitely (until a person is crazy or dead)? The Brits and the US can't make a case against such barbarianism when our own hands aren't clean.

Our little war in Iraq killed more civilians (taking the lowest estimate since the US didn't count them) in the first 3 years than Saddam had killed in 20 years. Which was worse?

It's been a very demoralizing decade around the world.

Boulder Bitch · 2 months ago

Sure am glad that President Obama, now also Nobel Peace Laureate, refused to meet with the Dalai Lama recently in order to appease China, the epitome of a barbaric, anti-freedom, authoritarian state.

Indigo · 2 months ago

I have the impression that the execution of selected Westerners accused of drug traffiking is a propoganda tool of China as well as some other Asian coutries. "You see," they can say, "we respect your drug laws.

An_American_Karol · 2 months ago

And your death penalty.

ImpureScience · 2 months ago

I imagine that the Chinese take a very dim view of Brits (or others) bringing opiates into the country; for historical perspective see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_Wars

An_American_Karol · 2 months ago

Unfortunately, the United States has no moral standing in regards to the death penalty.
Texas may have executed an innocent father for the death of his children, and the good governor is covering it up.

Gary SF · 2 months ago

Uh, I don't believe this 'mental illness' defense. He had $400k in heroine in a suitcase. He has 5 kids. But he got caught and so he is now mentally ill? This doesn't pass the 'smell test.'

FYI, I don't support the death penalty at all.

piltdown · 2 months ago

Not all "mental illness" is Down's-Syndrome type illness. He could have just been bi-polar or schizophrenic, and not able to hold down a job but still had a family to feed.

It happens. Again, not everyone with a mental illness is a "drooling retard".

/apologies to any drooling retards reading this

ShirleyGoodnessanMercy · 2 months ago

This story makes no sense to me. Why on earth would a severely mentally ill be in the Beijing airport with a fortune in drugs in his suitcase? It makes no sense. Was he being used by a drug kingpin to cluelessly carry drugs for him? I feel like a ton of facts are missing here.

leliorisen · 2 months ago

I think the real story here is the rapid plans for execution.

Personally, I do not think his crime merited a death penalty. Whether he was mentally-challenged or not is of no consequence to me.

China seems very concerned with the importation of drugs. Too bad they are not equally concerned about the exportation of toxic products that kill and sicken those in other countries.

An_American_Karol · 2 months ago

Yep, as Gary said, "it doesn't pass the smell test".

Bamjaya · 2 months ago

I don't understand. The Chinese kill drug traders and this is well known. He can either prove he was planted with the stash or he can't.

What, you wanted the heroin distributed? Or you want to find out if he was planted, or should drug traffickers always offer the best money to the "handicapped" so as to form a class of mules that is untouchable by the legal system?

This wasn't weed he grew in his closet. There was already blood and death in the kilos of heroin.

mirror · 2 months ago

You are either a cruel sick man or a troll for the cruel sick Chinese state.

Clearly the guy didn't even know he was carrying drugs. In the United States, for most crimes, including carrying, knowledge or intent is an element of the crime that must be proved by the state. Here the man wasn't even allowed to present a defense of any kind on this element. While the punishment could serve perhaps as a deterent to people who know what they are doing, this punishment will never serve as a deterent to people like this man.

It should be societies job to protect the handicapped from being victims, not punishing them for being victims.
sick.

leliorisen · 2 months ago

Let me guess...you're pro-life?

mirror · 2 months ago

Ok, I'll give the posters below the benefit of the doubt because they are clearly having trouble processing how someone so mentally ill could function at such a high level traveling in foreign countries. But I don't let you off the hook because you don't care how mentally ill the guy is.

People with fixed or overwhelming delusions can be completely bat shit crazy a function perfectly fine in many semeenly complex situations. In many situations they can be hard to spot because their problem doesn't make them dumber or drunken-seeming, until they say some off the wall shit. But as long as the off the wall shit doesn't impact directly on the interaction at hand we all have a tendency to let it slide.

Someone named "Shaikh" coming into Northwest China, given the recent upheavals, can expect to be searched thoroughly. Nobody with half a brain would try to get the stuff in that way by air to China, if they knew what they were doing.

jack · 2 months ago

China is notorious about their executions.
I was just watching a show on how they executed about a dozen pirates (handcuffed on their knees gunshot simultaneous to the back of the head).
They do it to serve a warning to its 2billion or so people that it is not tolerated.

If it is true that this guy is mentally handicapped and he got tricked into being a mule then they need to argue that fact - not that China has capitol punishment.

Dissenting views on capitol punishment aside, those lawyers need to state that he was taken advantage of.
It just raises a red flag that someone who has enough conscious to go to China doesn't notice 4 kilos of heroin.

Danno · 2 months ago

"British" and "mentally handicapped" -- redundant I believe.

This makes me think of all the youth that will not get an opportunity to buy drugs from this vermon.

I am going to go out on a limb and predict that after this scum is executed that he will never again push drugs.

Now I am going to do my part; I shall do some slumming and head to a Walmart where I shall fill my shopping cart with everything that I can find that is made in China.

Ian · 2 months ago

WWOOOOOO DONT MESS WITH TEXAS!

123 · 2 months ago

What foolish UK government did was to speed up the process of death penalty, every Chinese remember Opium War in 1840, Chinese modern history which is unbearable to recall began from that time. From the time when UK sold drug to China by their guns.Anyway, I think this noob will die at last, Chinese government will not come under the foreign government, especially UK which was called drug-pedlar in Chinese history.

Andy · 2 months ago

I wonder how the heroin "magically" got in his suitcase. There are millions of foreigners visiting China every year, yet Akmal Shaikh is the only one got lucky.......

Bipolar disorder doesn't mean one couldn't make any conscious decision. I'm sorry to all you believers, "mentally handicapped" is too much of a phrase for his pathetic excuse.

cowboyneok · 2 months ago

Where in the world did you get he had bipolar disorder from the article? According to the article, he had delusional psychosis. If he had delusional psychosis he could have most definitely not been responsible for his actions. If he were suffering from active bipolar disorder, he could also be argued to not be responsible for his behavior.

Andy · 2 months ago

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/10/13/chin...

Paragraph five.

By the way, this is the very first time I heard Bipolar could be "argued to not be responsible for ones behavior."