Breaking the law

Lot of screaming in the media about Akmal Shaikh who was executed in China today for drug smuggling. I have a great deal of sympathy for his friends and family who have put up a major campaign to try and have his sentence commuted.
However I have little or no sympathy for Akmal Shaikh who smuggled drugs into a country where they have the death sentence for smuggling drugs. I also discount the mental illness aspect too, the man had bipolar disorder and whilst this is a mental illness it's not a debilitating one with regard to intelligence. He may have been in a fantasy world, but would still have known when on the opposing cycle that what he was doing was very wrong.
If you break the laws of a country that you are visiting then you have to face that countries legal system if caught, Shaikh had been found with more than 4kg of heroin, and being caught with 50g of heroin was enough for the death penalty under Chinese law. Now Shaikh might not have known about the death penalty but he certainly would have known that if caught he'd face justice.
Now a lot of people are criticising the Chinese government for their laws, but that's the system they have, it's harsh, but it followed their rules and Shaikh was found bang to rights by them. It's not as if he'd broken some quaint byelaw either, drug smuggling is a worldwide offence and China takes it as seriously as any modern country, that their law still has the death sentence for such offences may be upsetting to certain western sensibilities, but it's still China's law and that has to be respected.

It should also serve as a warning to any other would be drug smugglers to China too.