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Akmal Shaikh |
Mother’s agony as son faces execution
THE brother of a former Kentish Town minicab firm boss facing execution in China for alleged drug running has revealed how he is desperately trying to keep his despairing family together.
Akmal Shaikh, 51, who ran Teksi taxi firm in Fortess Road, has been held in custody since September 2007 after being arrested with £250,000 worth of heroin at a Chinese airport.
Mr Shaikh’s family – including his 76-year-old mother and three of his children – lost contact with him when he disappeared to eastern Europe four years ago and fear he is suffering from mental health problems. His brother Akbar said on Tuesday: “The family is coping very badly. We are all in shock, especially my mum, who is disabled and has had heart failure. She is very poorly and I’m trying to do my best to hold the family together.”
Mr Shaikh, a former Holloway Boys School student, is believed to be suffering from bipolar disorder. His family’s lawyers believe drug gangs preyed on his mental frailty to convince him to carry a suitcase full of drugs.
If an appeal to the People’s Supreme Court in China fails, he could be executed almost immediately.
As head of Teksi, Mr Shaikh was accused of sexually harassing a female member of staff in 2004. He was ordered to pay £10,000 in unpaid wages and damages by an employment tribunal, although he was not at the hearing to defend himself. Teksi was sold to another cab firm which has no connection with Mr Shaikh.
“He has a long history of being delusional and irrational in his behaviour,” Mr Shaikh’s brother Akbar said. “He had this delusion of being somebody really successful but he wasn’t prepared to take any advice over his mental health. He was in some kind of denial.”
“But when he disappeared he was running a successful business and he seemed happy.”
Looking visibly shaken at a press conference at the Law Society in Holborn, Akbar said: “We still don’t know what was going through his mind, but he got involved with a lady friend and went to make a new life. Then we lost contact with him altogether.”
Clive Stafford Smith, director of Reprieve, the legal charity which takes up cases of British people facing execution overseas, said Mr Shaikh was clearly suffering from a serious mental disorder and the threat of execution was “real and imminent”.
He added: “It’s not like you have six months to say goodbye.” |
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