MANILA, Philippines—Four Japanese and a British national were among the foreigners convicted of drug trafficking who were executed recently in China.
In April 2010, Mitsunobu Akano, Teruo Takeda, Hironri Ukai and Katsuo Mori were executed in Liaoning province, years after they were caught and convicted.
They were the first group of Japanese nationals executed in China for drug-related cases since the two countries normalized diplomatic ties in 1972.
Akano, 65, was caught carrying more than 1.5 kilos of “stimulant drugs” at an airport in Dalian in September 2006.
Takeda, 67, was caught trading 2.9 kilos of drugs in June 2004, and Ukai, 48, was foiled in his attempt to pass airport security check with about 1.5 kilos of drugs under his clothes in September 2003.
Mori, 67, was caught by Chinese police when he attempted to board a plane from Shenyang to Japan with 1.25 kilos of drugs in July 2003.
The executions pushed through even after Japanese Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada reportedly met with Chinese Ambassador to Japan Cheng Yonghua to express concern about a possible backlash from Japan.
First European in 58 yrs
In December 2009, British Akmal Shaikh, 53, was executed by lethal injection.
He was convicted of smuggling four kilos of heroin into China in 2007 and is believed to be the first European in 58 years to be put to death in that country.
Former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown intervened to secure a fair trial and clemency for Shaikh, even raising the case with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and President Hu Jintao several times in writing, but to no avail.
Amid the controversy, the human rights group Amnesty International urged China to disclose the number of prisoners it had executed.
Amnesty International said in its 2009 annual report that a total of 714 people were officially known to have been executed from 18 countries.
It said the true figure could be much higher because thousands of executions were thought to have been carried out in China, which had kept the details of its executions a state secret. Inquirer Research
Sources: BBC; Wall Street JournalCrime and Law and Justice