He then started a prolonged email campaign, sharing his delusions with celebrities and government officials he had never met, firing off endless dispatches typed in an enormous 72-point font. Hundreds of emails sent by Shaikh to the British embassy in Warsaw from 2005 reveal the state of his mind. In the messages, obtained by Reprieve, he claimed to have spoken to the angel Gabriel and explained that he could have foiled the July 7 bombings in 2005, had he only been allowed to hold a press conference. One email appeared to be a letter to Father Christmas.
Some messages were copied in to a group of 74 organisations and individuals, including Tony Blair, Sir Paul McCartney, George W Bush and the BBC programme Top Gear.
But among the nonsense contained in the emails was information Shaikh's lawyers claim proves he had become involved with criminals who took advantage of his vulnerability. One mentioned a character called Carlos, who was going to help Shaikh achieve his dream of making it big in the music industry. Carlos, wrote Shaikh, had excellent contacts, and he knew a producer in Kyrgyzstan who could help him fulfil his dream of becoming a pop star. Though Shaikh had no singing experience, and even less musical talent, he recorded a song, an off-key track in English, Arabic and Polish called Come Little Rabbit, which, according to Reprieve, he truly believed had the potential to bring about world peace.
Today, two men who helped Shaikh record the song said it was clear he was psychiatrically ill. Gareth Saunders, a British teacher and musician who sang back-up on the song, said, "he clearly thought this song was going to have a very positive impact on the world".
He added: "It would be totally unlike him to get mixed up in drugs. However, it would be totally typical of him to fall for some kind of story that some drug dealer might spin to him concerning making his record in China … He would be so desperate for human contact that if some shady character came up to him to talk, Akmal would have gone on and on about his song, and it would have been easy for someone to see that he could be exploited."
It is Shaikh's case that back in 2007, "Carlos" told him that he knew people in the music industry that could assist and in September that year paid for a flight for Shaikh to Kyrgyzstan. There, his passport was taken by a gang of men – an act which did not unduly worry Shaikh, who believed he would soon be so famous that he would be recognised at every border crossing. When his passport was eventually returned, he was introduced to a man called Okole. This man, Shaikh claims he was told, ran a huge nightclub in China that would be the perfect venue for the debut performance of Come Little Rabbit.