London: While Britain sleeps at 2.30 this morning, a British man will be frogmarched from a prison cell in one of the most remote and inhospitable regions of the world. Despite bone-chilling temperatures, he will be taken outside and, barring a last-minute reprieve, pushed to his knees to await execution.

The prisoner will be ordered to open his mouth before a bullet is fired at the nape of his neck. It will fly through his head in a split second.

If the execution is expertly conducted, the bullet will come out of his mouth as he crumples to the ground, leaving his face intact so that the corneas of his eyes may be harvested for transplant. Hanging in the freezing air will be the smell of human blood and acrid gun smoke.

This is the fate that awaits a north London businessman named Akmal Shaikh. Unless a desperate last-ditch government plea for clemency was successful yesterday, the 53-year-old will become the first British citizen in living memory to be executed by China, and the first European to be executed in the country for 50 years.

Sentenced to death

After a half-hour trial in November 2007, he was convicted of smuggling 4kgs of heroin worth £250,000 (Dh1.5 million) into the country, hidden in the suitcase of someone he hardly knew, and sentenced to death. Shaikh was apparently only to discover yesterday that he is to be put to death, as the Chinese have kept his fate secret from him until 24 hours before the execution.

His supporters, who include his family and human rights groups, insist he is mentally ill — they say he suffers from manic depression — and was duped into becoming a drugs mule by a sophisticated international criminal gang.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown has written to the Chinese authorities pleading for the sentence to be set aside. This weekend British Foreign Office officials from Beijing broke their Christmas holiday to travel to the city of Urumqi, where Shaikh is being held, to make the case for a reprieve.

Meanwhile, two of Shaikh's cousins have arrived in China from London in the hope of having a final meeting with him on death row. The two cousins who visited him yesterday said he had not been aware of the death penalty he is facing.

"We beg the Chinese authorities for mercy and clemency to help reunite this heartbroken family," his cousin, Suhail Shaikh, said in a statement read to reporters in the far western city of Urumqi, where his cousin is being held.

Such eleventh-hour appeals are almost never granted in China, which executes more people each year than all other countries combined.

Suhail said he and his brother Nasser Shaikh visited Shaikh yesterday morning — his first direct family contact in two years. Suhail said his cousin had not previously been told of his impending execution.

"He was obviously very upset on hearing from us of the sentence that was passed," Suhail said. "We strongly feel that he's not rational and he needs medication."

Promises made

Shaikh's family says the small business owner from London was lured to China by two men who promised to help him launch a career in pop music.

The cousins claimed Shaikh was "incapable of drug smuggling".

Shaikh's 31-year-old daughter, Leilla, said on Sunday that she just hopes the cousins will not be too late to save her father. "He always dressed immaculately and was proud of his appearance. The thought of him sitting dishevelled in a Chinese prison cell waiting alone to die is terrible for us," she says.

A vigil was planned to take place yesterday outside the Chinese embassy in London. The candlelit event is being organised by a group formed on Facebook called Stop The Execution Of Akmal Shaikh.