Chinese regime upholds death penalty against Canadian for drug trafficking

A Chinese court on Tuesday confirmed the death sentence of Canadian Robert Lloyd Schellenberg at second instance for drug trafficking, against the backdrop of a serious diplomatic crisis between Beijing and Ottawa.

This decision comes a day before the Chinese justice announces its verdict on the also Canadian citizen Michael Spavor, accused of espionage. His arrest in China, shortly after the arrest in Canada of a senior official at Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei, damaged bilateral relations.

The High People’s Court of Justice in northeast China’s Liaoning Province today dismissed the second-instance appeal of Canadian citizen Robert Lloyd Schellenberg, sentenced to death for drug trafficking, and upheld the verdict.

In a statement released today on its website, the court decided “to dismiss the appeal, uphold the original verdict and notify the Supreme People’s Court.” the fate of Schellenberg, who “participated in organized international drug trafficking activities and trafficked 222,035 kilograms of methamphetamine”.

In January 2019, Chinese justice pronounced the death sentence of Schellenberg, a sentence intervened after a new trial, at the end of December 2018 and the beginning of January 2019, because it was considered to be mild. the already imposed sentence of 15 years in prison.

Then the prosecutor in charge of the case appealed against the conviction, assuring that “the evidence suggested that Schellenberg had probably been involved in international drug trafficking and played a key role in drug trafficking”, so that the court finally decided to repeat the trial, in which new prosecution evidence was provided.

According to the Chinese penal code, Anyone who traffics, imports, transports or manufactures opium in quantities greater than one kilogram, or heroin in quantities greater than 50 grams or other narcotic drugs in large quantities, should be sentenced to 15 years in prison, life imprisonment or death, in addition to confiscation of your assets.

The replay of the trial came at a time of great tension between Beijing and Ottawa, as just weeks earlier, on December 1, 2018, Canada arrested Chinese tech firm Huawei’s CFO, Meng Wanzhou, on demand. from the United States, for their alleged violation of Washington’s sanctions against Iran.

Days later, Beijing arrested a former Canadian diplomat and businessman – Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, respectively – who have since been detained in China and subsequently charged with espionage.

Although they were tried on this charge in the first half of this year, their sentences are still unknown.

The trial for Meng’s extradition is still pending before the Supreme Court of the province of British Columbia, on Canada’s Pacific coast.

Meng, whose release Beijing has repeatedly requested, is on probation and lives with his family in one of two mansions he owns in the Canadian city of Vancouver.

(With information from EFE and AFP)

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