Law and disorders

Following the execution in China of a British citizen, Peter White considers what happens when the law and disability collide head-on

The execution of UK citizen Akmal Shaikh in north-west China caused consternation in the liberal press, partly because of the horror of capital punishment anywhere, partly because of the court’s apparent refusal to consider evidence about Shaikh’s state of mind.

Shaikh stood accused of smuggling four kilos of heroin into China but there was available evidence from his GP, a psychiatrist, and friends in Poland, where he’d been living before the trip to China, that Shaikh was confused, delusional and hyperactive before his trip, characteristics consistent with bipolar disorder, making him an easy prey for gangsters looking for a drugs mule.

I’m in no position to judge the factual rights and wrongs of this case, except to say that any refusal to hear evidence in a case carrying the death penalty is extremely concerning.

What worries me more is that despite the strenuous efforts of Shaikh’s family and the human rights organisation Reprieve, this case received little publicity in Britain until too late.

I don’t think it’s too far-fetched to suggest that part of the reason for this was that three elements in Shaikh’s case didn’t excite media or public sympathy: it was a drugs case, Shaikh was a Muslim and he was pleading a psychiatric illness.

Although we’ll pillory the Chinese for their human rights attitudes in not taking into account an established psychiatric condition, we perhaps shouldn’t go too far down this road without recognising that Britain can’t be too proud of its own view of mental illness, too often seen as an excuse for criminality and shirking rather than as a reason for sympathy and well-founded treatment.

It’s too late now to help Akmal Shaikh but perhaps this should give the Government pause to consider again how it can assist Gary McKinnon. McKinnon won’t face the death penalty if he’s forced to go to the United States to face charges of hacking into the Pentagon’s computers but he will face, if found guilty, a very long sentence in a very tough prison system, a sentence those who know him feel would be almost as harsh.

I don’t doubt home secretary Alan Johnson, a man whose liberal instincts I trust, is in a tight place as far as the Anglo-American extradition treaty is concerned, but surely it’s possible to broker a humane solution in negotiating with a country that regards itself as “modern” when it comes to attitudes towards psychiatric treatment. After all, the States is not akin to China in this regard, is it? Although they do, of course, still permit the death penalty, don’t they?