China upholds death sentence for Canadian convicted amid tensions – By Darryl Coote (UPI) / Aug 10 2021
Aug. 10 (UPI) — A Chinese court on Tuesday upheld the death sentence of a Canadian citizen convicted of drug trafficking amid a political row between the two countries.
The Liaoning High People’s Court announced in a statement Tuesday that it has rejected the appeal of Robert Lloyd Schellenberg, who was arrested in 2014 of smuggling hundreds of pounds of methamphetamine into the country.
Schellenberg originally received a 15-year prison term in 2018 but it was changed to a death sentence at a one-day retrial in January 2019, a month after Canada arrested Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Huawei, at the direction of the United States over obstruction of justice, sanctions violations and other charges.
Following Meng’s detention at the Vancouver airport, China also separately arrested two other Canadians, Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig, on espionage charges that have been widely viewed as politically motivated.
