A Chinese court has sentenced a Canadian man to be executed for drug smuggling, prompting Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to accuse China of using the death penalty arbitrarily.
Monday's ruling, and Trudeau’s reaction, could aggravate already sour relations between Beijing and Ottawa following the arrest of a Chinese executive in Canada and China’s subsequent detention of two Canadians, reports Reuters.
The Dalian Intermediate People’s Court in China’s Liaoning province re-tried Robert Lloyd Schellenberg, who had appealed his original 15-year prison sentence, and decided on execution, the court said in a statement.
Schellenberg was told in court he had the right to appeal to Liaoning High Court within 10 days upon receiving the ruling, the intermediate court said in a second statement.
“It is of extreme concern to us as a government, as it should be to all our international friends and allies, that China has chosen to begin to arbitrarily apply (the) death penalty... as in this case,” Trudeau told reporters in Ottawa.
Late on Monday, Canada’s foreign ministry updated its travel advisory for China to warn citizens about “the risk of arbitrary enforcement of local laws.”
It added: “We continue to advise all Canadians traveling to China to exercise a high degree of caution.”
Schellenberg’s aunt, Lauri Nelson-Jones, said the family’s worst fears had been confirmed.
“Our thoughts are with Robert at this time. It is rather unimaginable what he must be feeling and thinking,” she said in a statement to Reuters. “It is a horrific, unfortunate, heartbreaking situation.”
In a second statement sent hours later, she said “the Schellenberg family requests that all Canadians stand with us and pray for the safe return of our loved one.”
China-Canada ties turned icy in early December after Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei Technologies Co, was arrested in Vancouver on a US extradition warrant.
China warned of unspecified consequences unless Meng was released, and detained Michael Kovrig, a Canadian diplomat on unpaid leave from the embassy in Beijing, and Michael Spavor, a Canadian consultant, on suspicion of endangering state security.
