A BRITON IS EXECUTED IN CHINA, BRITAIN SAYS

SHANGHAI -- A British man convicted of drug smuggling was executed in
China early Tuesday, despite appeals for clemency from his family,
human rights groups and Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain,
according to British officials.

The man, Akmal Shaikh, 53, was executed in the far western Chinese
region of Xinjiang, where he had been convicted in 2008 of entering
the country carrying a suitcase stuffed with heroin. It was not clear
how the execution was carried out.

Mr. Brown immediately released a statement on Tuesday saying that he
condemned the execution "in the strongest terms" and that he was
"appalled" that the court did not grant Mr. Shaikh clemency.

British officials pressed the courts to consider Mr. Shaikh's history
of mental disturbance. Britain had called on the courts to allow an
independent evaluation of Mr. Shaikh's mental state. But China's
highest court rejected a last minute appeal from the victim's family
this week, and it allowed the execution to go ahead.

Human rights groups say that Mr. Shaikh, a former London minicab
driver, was the first European to be executed in the country in over 50 years.

China's state-run news media on Tuesday blamed the Western news media
for "politicizing" the execution, and it said that government
officials had determined that there was insufficient evidence that
Mr. Shaikh had suffered from mental health problems.

China's drug trafficking laws are harsh, and its criminal justice
system carried out about 1,700 executions last year, according to
Amnesty International.

Mr. Shaikh was born in Pakistan and moved to Britain at age 11.
Family members say he has a long history of mental problems and he
had been duped into carrying the suitcase. He left for China in 2007,
they said, hoping to start a career as a pop singer.