China execution of Briton Akmal Shaikh stresses UK ties

But the execution went ahead after the court rejected late testimony brought forward by Reprieve from people who knew Shaikh in Warsaw, where he lived in a homeless shelter before coming to China in 2007. "There is no reason to cast doubt on Akmal Shaikh's mental status," the court said in a statement.

Acquaintances in Poland told Reprieve that Shaikh was obsessed with "Come Little Rabbit," a song he wrote to promote world peace that he believed would make him a pop star.

"It was clear that he was mentally ill, although he was a very likable person, friendly and very open," said British Warsaw resident Paul Newberry, according to Reprieve.

China's penal code specifies that a mental patient can be exempted of criminal responsibility only when his crime was committed while out of control of his own conduct.

Death penalty for heroin possession

Shaikh was arrested in September 2007 for possession of about nine pounds of heroin found in his suitcase in the Urumqi airport as he arrived from Tajikistan. The amount is 80 times the 50-gram threshold for a death sentence under Chinese drug law.

Chinese authorities originally indicated a willingness to allow an examination by a local doctor, but subsequently refused, according to Reprieve, which then paid for a British psychologist to fly to Urumqi, where he, too, was denied a chance to gauge Shaikh's mental health.

"The reviewing court thus had the benefit of no expert opinion on this crucial issue," said Jerome Cohen, of the US-Asia Law Institute at New York University, in The South China Morning Post on Dec. 23. The court "did, however, apparently allow the defendant the opportunity, against the advice of his lawyers, to deliver a rambling, often incoherent, statement that caused the judges to openly laugh at him."

China executed about 1,700 people in 2008, far surpassing Iran at 346 and the United States at 111, according to London-based human rights advocacy Amnesty International.

According to Philip Alston, United Nations rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions, Shaikh's initial conviction was based on a 30-minute hearing that "would not indicate due process."

A statement on China's central government's website justifies capital punishment as a deterrent: "To use the death penalty for extremely threatening and serious crimes involving drugs is beneficial to instilling fear and preventing drug crimes."

But international law reserves capital punishment for crimes of lethal violence, Alston told the BBC: "It is not appropriate, under international law, for drug traffickers to be executed."

The last European to be executed in China was the Shanghai-born Italian Antonio Riva, who was shot for espionage in Beijing in August 1951.

Wang Ping contributed reporting.

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