Prime Minister Gordon Brown has written to the Chinese government to express his "dismay" that a British citizen is due to be executed there and appealed for clemency, his office said Tuesday. Akmal Shaikh, a 53-year-old father-of-three whose supporters say suffers from bipolar disorder, faces execution on December 29 for drug smuggling.
He lost his final appeal on Monday in China's Supreme Court, his lawyers said. "The prime minister and foreign secretary have raised Akmal Shaikh's case with China's leaders on many occasions," a spokesman for Brown's Downing Street office said. "The prime minister has appealed to the Chinese government to show clemency." The news comes amid strains in ties between London and Beijing over this month's United Nations climate change summit in Copenhagen, with a British minister accusing China of "hijacking" the negotiations.