A British man convicted of drug smuggling in China has been executed

[Rob2020]

Regardless of whether or not this guy was guilty, this is big news.
BBC News - British man said to be mentally ill executed in China

Key Points:

• Akmal Shaikh, 53, of London, had denied any wrongdoing and his family said he was mentally ill.
• Mr Shaikh is the first EU national to be executed in China in 50 years

[PDLM]

I don't think anyone is trying to make a case that he was not guilty are they? The question people were raising is whether mental illness is a valid defence for a crime, or at least for mitigation of sentence. It seems to me that this depends on your, frankly quite arbitrary, definition of "mental illness". It would be perfectly possible, for example, to make a case that anyone who kills a random person in cold blood is, per se, mentally ill.

[Rob2020]

I should be clear, the points above were taken from the article.
My comments:
1. Akmal was probably guilty
2. If he was truly mentally sick, what was he doing travelling to Urumqi in the first place?
3. Does China (or any other nation) have the (moral) right to execute a foreign national?

[pushan]

>> It would be perfectly possible, for example, to make a case that anyone who kills a random person in cold blood is, per se, mentally ill.

yes.

if he was guilty, he shd pay as per the law of the land...as far as I recall, the law is pretty similar in S'pore...and they don't make any allowances for EU nationals either.

[Rob2020]

Unfortunately, Mental Illness seems to be the "dog ate my homework" of the modern world..
It's a shame, because there are plenty of really mentally sick people out there, it's just they are being drowned out by all the false wailings from liars.

[pushan]

3. Does China (or any other nation) have the (moral) right to execute a foreign national?

my take is...yes.

any foreign national traveling to any country MUST obey the law of the land or pay as per local laws and stipulations (my opinion, you are free to have a different view).

If China executes a chinese national for drug trafficking, it shd do the same for a foreign national for the same crime.

[PDLM]

3. Does China (or any other nation) have the (moral) right to execute a foreign national?

The answer to that clearly has to be yes. It is simply untenable for a country to have one set of laws that applies to its citizens and another that applies to non-citizens.

[Rob2020]

Agreed, I see a valid use for capital punishment in a variety of scenarios

[hullexile]

I should be clear, the points above were taken from the article.
My comments:
1. Akmal was probably guilty
2. If he was truly mentally sick, what was he doing travelling to Urumqi in the first place?
3. Does China (or any other nation) have the (moral) right to execute a foreign national?

1. Agree
2. I am sure mentally ill people travel, but agree with PDLM on the difficulty of defining mental illness as a mitigating circumstance
3. Does any state have the moral right to kill one of their own? I would not differentiate between own and foreign to be honest as I am against the death penalty in general. Agree there should not be different laws for nationals and non-nationals.

[PDLM]

Unfortunately, Mental Illness seems to be the "dog ate my homework" of the modern world.

Absolutely - there is a very unfortunate trend to label anyone who doesn't fit some sort of quite narrowly defined "normal" set of characteristics as "mentally ill".