Akmal Shaikh - China executes mentally ill Briton

[nunthewiser]

I thought my post was the best one in this thread actually.

 

[Timmy]

I thought my post was the best one in this thread actually.

Nun, this hardly needs saying

 

[Timmy]

And now I am saying I am off for the day/evening.

Hope to see you all next year!

This being NYE, and just to piss off the uptight, Happy Holidays!

 

[sam76]

Happy Holidays to you too, mate.

 

[nunthewiser]

you too Timmy

 

[Julia]

The lack of compassion for, and active vilification of, someone with a mental illness shown on this thread is appalling.

I don't think that pointing out that someone with bipolar is still in touch with reality and therefore able to assess a situation is lacking in compassion. It is simply being objective. There is no connection with having or not having compassion.

Sam - with a 30-minute trial I don't think anyone can conclude he had intent (mentally impaired) or not.

Um, how long do you need when he was discovered with the heroin on his person?

Sorry guys, IF he was mentally ill (and I believe he was, and in the absence of a fair trial it can remain only a belief) then executing him is the wrong thing to do.

Timmy, sorry, but this remark shows a lack of understanding of bipolar disease.
Our courts and jails are full of people with mental illnesses. Last time I saw the stats I think it was about 70% of inmates in jails who are considered to have some form of mental illness.

The difference in this case is that it's China's law that this crime carries the death penalty whereas we prefer that the taxpayer house the offenders.

Sorry 4s - I am no lawyer and am not capable of explaining the importance of intent ... let alone knowing how this may apply in China.

Again, why is there any confusion about 'intent' when he was found with the heroin on his person?

But I do know that executing the mentally ill, for a crime that they may not know they are committing (and in the absence of a fair trial I am giving the man the benefit of the doubt) is wrong.

On this principle, then, you would excuse most of the people who commit crimes. I suppose you could quite easily say that to commit a crime which has a known result of incarceration (in Australia) or death (in China) would ipso facto define a person as being mentally ill.
Again, there is no suggestion that someone with bipolar does not know what they are doing.
Why do you think this?

 

[lasty]

China simply realised that having 2 Charlie Sheens on the planet wasn't a good idea so one had to go.

 

[Fishbulb]

Come the revolution, people who defend those that don't take responsibility for their own actions will be the first ones up against the wall.

 

[wayneL]

Come the revolution...

Include me in! :shoot:

 

[DB008]

I strongly agree with that point. Basically what China has said, is your life is valued at a 30 min assesment. That is a bit of a joke.

No.
They are saying, importing 4kg of drugs is not on.
Should be no trial. Bipolar is NO excuse. Give me a break. A very good friend of mine has this disorder, and he knows the difference between right and wrong.

 

[Macquack]

No.
They are saying, importing 4kg of drugs is not on.
Should be no trial.

No trial, you must be joking?

 

[bunyip]

Having Bi-polar would not prevent him from knowing what he was doing.
If he'd just walked in with the drugs in plain view, then we could assume he had no understanding of what he was doing.
You can bet your life that's not what happened....he would have tried to conceal them - clearly this indicates that he knew he was breaking the law.
I know one person with Bi-polar, and my wife has come across many BP sufferers in her career as a mental health nurse. Believe me, he would have known what he was doing.
I have zero sympathy for hard drug traffickers....they're mass murderers. In Australia he would have got some pathetic little sentence like six or seven years in the slammer, and he would have been out in four if he behaved himself. Then probably would have gone back to his old tricks again.
China - much more sensible than Australian in matters of criminal punishment - made sure he could never trouble society again.
Good on them. I don't often praise the Chinese, but they got it right this time.
When or if Australia starts following the lead of China and Singapore in executing drug traffickers, then and only then might we start making some serious inroads into the drug trafficking problem in this country.

 

[pilots]

Bunyip, your post would be one of the best this year.

 

[Garpal Gumnut]

Its a difficult one isn't it.

Mental illness in the West is a defence.

In China and other places the impact of the crime tends to take precedence.

The Chinese won't listen to the UK's bleatings on this at any level.

My instinct is to support the Chinese stand on this but they are such a weird mob, with endemic corruption by the ruling class and bugger all justice for the rest.

I certainly won't lose any sleep over it, in any case.

gg

 

[bunyip]

And I'd be absolutely delighted if the Bali Nine were executed as well.
The slimy bastards had enough hard drugs on them to dose up tens of thousands of people, and they intended to bring those drugs right here into our midst.
There's no question that at least some of those tens of thousands of Australians would have overdosed and probably died. But those nine mongrels couldn't give a toss about that....all they were interested in was the money, and to hell with everyone else.
Not good enough. Kill them.
Do society the double favour of getting rid of nine oxygen thieves, while at the same time sending the strongest possible message that you forfeit your life if you traffic drugs.

 

[Macquack]

Bunyip, have you had a relative or friend overdose on heroin? I ask the question because you take a bloody hard line.

 

[condog]

I profess to not know a huge amount about this case, and am therefore by no means passing judgment.....

But I have this inescapable question in all cases like this....

Should mental illness be a defense in this case or any other....

Could anyone actually argue that Binliner or any of the Bali Bombers and other terroists are in any way sane....are they not mentally ill and does mental illness form a legitimate excuse for crashing airliners into buildings....

Im not sure on this guy as I stated, but I do seriously question mental illness as a legitimate legal or ethical defence in many cases world wide....

Having said that I know there are hoards of people who without proper medication and care would committ offences.....

Its a difficult question and one which possibly a jury should be making decisions on rather then legislation and case law....

Bunyips I agree with the intnet of your comments but probably not in all cases....unfortunately many of these countries which still have the death penalty also lack legal integrity and proper justice procedures......meaning someone who on the balance of propability could only be innocent can actually be found or forced to plead guilty....eg: possibly Shapelle Corby.....

For the life of me why would someone export drugs to Bali where there is a death penalty and the street value is less then 20% of the street value in Australia.......it defies logic....and given the Airline baggage handling events that have occured since her trial .... the poor women deserves our support for a retrial......even if she is possibly guilty....why because she on the balance of all probability is innocent....and certainly not guilty beyond reasonable doubt.....

The drug mules are an entirely different story.....but one must consider the uestion of duress and abuse of power exercised over them......Im not saying that makes them innocent, but t may be a determingin factor between a length sentence and a death penalty....Its at least worth discussing...its too late after the fact...

One thing I am EXTREMELY certain about - Australia is inexcusably and PATHETICALLY soft on crime! And the NSW Juvinille crimes act is the worst legislation on the face of this planet.... If kids had the living crap scared out of them the first time they offeneded it would possibly stop a lot of this rubbish well before it becomes habituated criminal behaviour.

Sure incarciration is not the answer , but hard labour, community crime, councilling, offender / victim confrontations etc are all options.....put tracking devices on these regular offenders and curfews...

 

[condog]

Bunyip, your post would be one of the best this year.

They make nasal delivery technolgy sprays for these sorts of premature statements....its the 1st of january for god sake....

Now this ones the best of the year.....ha ha

 

[bunyip]

Bunyip, have you had a relative or friend overdose on heroin? I ask the question because you take a bloody hard line.

I've never had a friend or relative overdose on heroin. But I've seen enough in the media and in real life examples to know that drugs wreak terrible havoc in our society.
And my wife, a mental health nurse, can tell some horrid stories of the terrible drug-related illnesses she's seen in psychiatric hospitals.
And it all starts with the mongrels who get involved in the drug trade for their personal financial gain, such as the Bali nine for example.

Yes, I take a hard line, but a realistic one if we really want to get serious about drastically reducing the drug trade.
It's ludicrous to give similar jail terms to a bank robber and a hard drug trafficker. But that's what happens.
As bad as he is, the bank robber is not the same evil, mass murdering bastard that a hard drug trafficker is.
It's easy to think the soft, emotional way by saying 'Oh no, we can't kill drug traffickers - that's just plain wrong'.
But it's more difficult to use some hard-nosed reality and consider the bigger picture by saying 'OK, killing one drug trafficker might save hundreds of lives, firstly be eliminating him permanently from the drug trade, secondly by discouraging other potential mongrels who might otherwise have been tempted to try their hand at drug trafficking'.

Keep killing drug traffickers, and sooner or later we'll reach a situation like Singapore where they have one of the lowest rate of drug trafficking of any country in the world.

Think about the current penalties for drug trafficking in Australia.....are they working? Definitely not....drug trafficking is increasing. Why? Because the penalties are not sufficient deterrent.
Solution - increase the penalties to whatever is needed to ensure that they do work. No point in kidding ourselves that we'll ever stamp out drug trafficking completely - even Singapore hasn't been able to do that. But by hell, they've cut drug trafficking down to very low levels - the sort of levels we'd welcome in Australia if we could achieve them.
Singapore hasn't achieved this good result by playing tiddlywinks with druggies.....they get fair dinkum and eliminate them, and in the process stop many other people from ever becoming traffickers in the first place.
We need to do the same here in Australia - then we might start getting some real results.

 

[bunyip]

Bunyips I agree with the intnet of your comments but probably not in all cases....unfortunately many of these countries which still have the death penalty also lack legal integrity and proper justice procedures......meaning someone who on the balance of propability could only be innocent can actually be found or forced to plead guilty....eg: possibly Shapelle Corby.....

For the life of me why would someone export drugs to Bali where there is a death penalty and the street value is less then 20% of the street value in Australia.......it defies logic....and given the Airline baggage handling events that have occured since her trial .... the poor women deserves our support for a retrial......even if she is possibly guilty....why because she on the balance of all probability is innocent....and certainly not guilty beyond reasonable doubt.....

The drug mules are an entirely different story.....but one must consider the uestion of duress and abuse of power exercised over them......Im not saying that makes them innocent, but t may be a determingin factor between a length sentence and a death penalty....Its at least worth discussing...its too late after the fact...

One thing I am EXTREMELY certain about - Australia is inexcusably and PATHETICALLY soft on crime! And the NSW Juvinille crimes act is the worst legislation on the face of this planet.... If kids had the living crap scared out of them the first time they offeneded it would possibly stop a lot of this rubbish well before it becomes habituated criminal behaviour.

I agree.....the death penalty in a corrupt, pathetic, incompetent society like Indonesia could be badly misused due to their inability and complete lack of interest in giving people fair trials.
Corby, for example, should not be in jail at all, since there was no evidence that she placed the drugs in her bag.
Wheter she's innocent or guilty is not the question here. The fact is that she was convicted and jailed for 20 years without a shred of evidence.
Bali Nine, different story - the irrefutable evidence was that they were caught with the drugs strapped to their bodies.
In theory they should probably be handed over to Australia for punishment, since it was Australia they were headed for with their drugs. In practice though, I'm pleased the Indonesians are dealing with them - at least they get a decent penalty there, 20 years for some, life for others.
Under the ridiculous Australian penalty system, they'd be walking the streets again in seven or eight years.
On the other hand, I'd welcome the Bali nine being sent to Australia if they were shot or hung when they got here.