As Sure As Eggs Is Eggs

In September 2007 British national Akmal Shaikh was arrested at Urumqi airport in Northwest China after arriving on a flight from Tajikistan. He had with him a suitcase carrying four kilograms of heroin. According to CNN: ‘The 53-year-old claimed he was given the suitcase to carry by another man who had duped him into believing he was travelling to China to become a nightclub performer and was unaware of the drugs concealed inside.’ This other man failed to turn up during a sting operation in which Akmal aided the Chinese police, and consequently Akmal now faces the death penalty.

His brother Akbar and not-for-profit Reprieve argue that Akmal is not of sound mind and that he may have bi-polar disorder. Both maintain that Akmal’s sentence should be reconsidered taking this into account. As proof of his mental state they cite his movements prior to arrest: going to Poland to start an airline with no money to do so and then travelling to Central Asia with the intention of becoming a pop star. Additionally there are the many ‘rambling, incoherent’ emails that Akmal sent to the British Embassy in Poland, George Bush, Paul McCartney and many other leaders and figures, which Reprieve have made available.

Back in May—as the appeals hearing for Akmal was due—the BBC quoted Reprieve's director, Clive Stafford Smith:

‘Akmal Shaikh faces the possibility of a hollow-point bullet to the back of the head sometime very soon, unless Gordon Brown makes strong representations to President Hu Jintao. […] And at a bare minimum, the prime minister can surely ensure that we get a mental health expert in to see Mr Shaikh, so we can prove the seriousness of Mr Shaikh's illness to the Chinese courts.’

Mental health expert Dr Peter Schaapveld was indeed approved to go to China, but on arriving he was—Reprieve have claimed—refused access to Akmal and prevented from attending the appeal hearing.

Ma Zhaoxu—a spokesman for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs—stated on 13^th October that the evidence presented at the appeal failed to show that Akmal suffers from any mental disorder. China Daily paraphrases Ma: ‘the British embassy in China and a British organization had proposed to organize mental disease examinations on Akmal Shaikh, while offering no evidence that he may be suffering from mental disease.’ Ma also stated that Akmal has himself testified that neither he nor his family have any history of mental illness. The High People's Court of Xinjiang has thus rejected the appeal, with the New York Times noting that Akmal ‘was apparently so delusional during [the] appeals hearing in May that the judges could not help but laugh out loud.’

Akmal does have one remaining appeal: to the Supreme People’s Court in Beijing. However, if the death sentence is upheld there then Akmal will face execution.

And so much for my journalism, now it’s 1.00 a.m. and the analysis must begin. It would be easy enough to discuss how we might want to view China here, but as the pre-cited New York Times states: ‘Although China puts more people to death than all other nations combined, it rarely executes foreigners, who are generally treated more leniently by the criminal justice system.’ How about the more international dilemma of serious crime versus mitigating circumstances?

Some crimes or threats are deemed to be so serious, so destructive, that the legislation put in place to fight them appears inherently sceptical of any justifying or extenuating circumstances surrounding the defendant's actions. If you do it you are guilty: as sure as eggs is eggs. In this case, bi-polar or no, the heroin made it across the border. Likewise terrorism is currently posed as too much of a risk to allow much circumstance in the lives of the accused. Barring successful appeals or media/public outcries, downloading terrorist material (Al-Qaeda paisley?) carries a similar penalty whether it was done with terrorist activity in mind or just for research. It’s a de facto crime that, like drug smuggling and many other crimes, must always be punished if we are to eradicate such a serious threat to the world.

Quite possibly this works, but isn’t there something to be learnt from drug smugglers and security threats who are unwitting, or at least subjectively innocent from their own perspective? If your legislation seeks to punish those who are criminally proficient and devious, and your police force prefigures its search to be a hunt for such people then fine. But…what if this search for nasty pieces of work keeps leading you instead to people like Akmal? What if there are thousands of people out there, unwittingly and haplessly committing the very crimes that consultants have told you require high tech equipment, special powers and intelligently deployed clout to detect and prevent, because only the cleverest, most violent criminals commit them?

Akmal was breaking other people’s laws. His frame of mind is incommensurable with the criminal mindset imagined in the laws he was arrested under. Even if we don't oppose the death penalty, even if we maintain that certain crimes merit punishment for anyone committing them however ill, hapless or unwitting, surely we could at least have a separate, less intense force to deal with such ‘accidental’ criminals. That might be better than using crack anti-terror and anti-drug squads (and countless others) to catch and scare the living daylights out of people who never had any intention of thwarting special operations.

Oh it’s a bloody mess, folks. In conclusion I’ll just quote Michael Herr’s Dispatches, a quote that may describe the law, or may describe me:

‘Peter,’ the general said, ‘I think you’re hitting a small nail with an awfully big hammer.’

Akmal Shaikh was executed on 29^th December 2009.