The Pakistani Spectator

Akmal Shaikh’s journey from a minicab business in north London to death row in a remote part of north-west China is a labyrinthine tale involving eastern European gangsters, harebrained business schemes and a dream of international pop stardom.

It began in Kentish Town, north London, where Shaikh lived with his British wife and children. The couple ran a cab firm called Teksi on Fortess Road, close to Kentish Town tube station, and life appeared to be good.

Shaikh’s former solicitor, Bruce Hayim, told the Observer earlier this year that Shaikh was once a “charming and charismatic man” – though the legal campaign group Reprieve insist he has “a lifelong history of very strange behaviour”. His older brother, Akbar, said his sibling had shown signs of mental illness in 2001 after his first marriage had ended and “as he grew older he seemed to go off the rails”. In 2004, he was accused of sexually harassing a female member of staff and ordered to pay £10,000 in unpaid wages and damages by an employment tribunal, according to his local paper, the Hampstead and Highgate Express.

But in 2005 Shaikh’s life started to unravel further. He suddenly packed his bags and left for Poland, says his brother, where he announced plans to set up an airline despite having no means to do so. Given his complete lack of money, business plan or experience in the aviation industry, the venture soon foundered, but he was undeterred.

Having turned his back on his family, he stayed on, sometimes sleeping rough, moving from Lublin in the east to the capital, Warsaw. At some point he acquired a girlfriend, who told the Observer she soon became concerned by his “really silly and crazy” behaviour, such as the time he sent her a fake letter purporting to show he had won £1m.

He then started a prolonged email campaign, sharing his delusions with celebrities and government officials he had never met, firing off endless dispatches typed in an enormous 72-point font. Hundreds of emails sent by Shaikh to the British embassy in Warsaw from 2005 reveal the state of his mind. In the messages, obtained by Reprieve, he claimed to have spoken to the angel Gabriel and explained that he could have foiled the July 7 bombings in 2005, had he only been allowed to hold a press conference. One email appeared to be a letter to Father Christmas.

Some messages were copied in to a group of 74 organisations and individuals, including Tony Blair, Sir Paul McCartney, George W Bush and the BBC programme Top Gear.

But among the nonsense contained in the emails was information Shaikh’s lawyers claim proves he had become involved with criminals who took advantage of his vulnerability. One mentioned a character called Carlos, who was going to help Shaikh achieve his dream of making it big in the music industry. Carlos, wrote Shaikh, had excellent contacts, and he knew a producer in Kyrgyzstan who could help him fulfil his dream of becoming a pop star. Though Shaikh had no singing experience, and even less musical talent, he recorded a song, an off-key track in English, Arabic and Polish called Come Little Rabbit, which, according to Reprieve, he truly believed had the potential to bring about world peace.

Today, two men who helped Shaikh record the song said it was clear he was psychiatrically ill. Gareth Saunders, a British teacher and musician who sang back-up on the song, said, “he clearly thought this song was going to have a very positive impact on the world”.

He added: “It would be totally unlike him to get mixed up in drugs. However, it would be totally typical of him to fall for some kind of story that some drug dealer might spin to him concerning making his record in China … He would be so desperate for human contact that if some shady character came up to him to talk, Akmal would have gone on and on about his song, and it would have been easy for someone to see that he could be exploited.”

It is Shaikh’s case that back in 2007, “Carlos” told him that he knew people in the music industry that could assist and in September that year paid for a flight for Shaikh to Kyrgyzstan. There, his passport was taken by a gang of men – an act which did not unduly worry Shaikh, who believed he would soon be so famous that he would be recognised at every border crossing. When his passport was eventually returned, he was introduced to a man called Okole. This man, Shaikh claims he was told, ran a huge nightclub in China that would be the perfect venue for the debut performance of Come Little Rabbit.

En route to China, the two men stopped in Dushanbe, in Tajikistan, where they stayed in a five-star hotel – which Reprieve say Shaikh believed was a sign of his celebrity status. There, Okole told him he would have to fly to China alone as the flight was full. Shaikh claims Okole gave him a suitcase and promised to follow on the next flight.

On 12 September 2007, Shaikh flew into Urumqi and was stopped by customs officials on arrival. He was searched and his baggage scanned. Two packets containing around £250,000 worth of heroin were found in his luggage.

Shaikh told the officials that he did not know anything about the drugs, and that the suitcase did not belong to him. Reprieve say he helped the Chinese authorities with their inquiries and even set up a “sting” operation, telling Chinese officials to wait for Okole as he was due to arrive on the next plane. But Okole never turned up and Shaikh was arrested.

Though he was sentenced to death shortly after, the Foreign Office was not notified for many months, and in August 2008, Reprieve took on the case.

Chinese law says a defendant’s mental state should be taken into consideration if they are accused of serious crimes, but the Chinese authorities have refused repeated requests for Shaikh to be evaluated by a doctor. At his first appeal hearing this May, Shaikh insisted on reading a long, rambling and often incoherent statement to the court. His performance was so strange that judges laughed.

Though he has never been assessed by a psychiatrist, Foreign Office officials were eventually allowed to spend 15 minutes with Shaikh. From their description of Shaikh’s behaviour, Dr Peter Schaapveld, a London-based consultant clinical and forensic psychologist, compiled a medical report in which he was able to deduce with “99% certainty” that he was suffering from a mental disorder that could either be bipolar or schizophrenia. Despite that diagnosis, at 2.30am, Shaikh is due to be put to death.

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