Executed Briton mentally sound: Chinese court

China's high court said on Tuesdaythere's no proofa British man who was convicted of drug smuggling and executed suffered from a mental disorder.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown slammed the execution of Akmal Shaikh, who friends and supporters claim was mentally unstable and was unwittingly lured into the crime.

"I condemn the execution of Akmal Shaikh in the strongest terms, and am appalled and disappointed that our persistent requests for clemency have not been granted," Brown said in a statement issued by the Foreign Affairs Office. "I am particularly concerned that no mental health assessment was undertaken."

Butthe official Xinhua News Agency quoted China's Supreme Court saying Tuesday that although officials from the British Embassy and a British aid organization called for a mental health examination for Shaikh, "the documents they provided could not prove he had a mental disorder nor did members of his family have a history of mental disease."

"There is no reason to cast doubt on Akmal Shaikh's mental status," the Supreme Court was quoted as saying.

China had rejected a string of appeals from the British government and last-minute pleas from Shaikh relatives to spare his life.

Shaikh became the first European citizen to be executed in China in more than half a century.

Shaikh was arrested in 2007 for carrying a suitcase with almost four kilograms of heroin into China on a flight from Tajikistan.

He told Chinese officials he didn't know about the drugs and that the suitcase wasn't his, according to Reprieve, a London-based prisoner advocacy group that helped with his case. He was convicted in 2008 after a half-hour trial.

It's not known how Shaikh was put to death. China, which executes more people than any other country, is increasingly doing so by lethal injection, although some death sentences are still carried out by a gunshot in the head.