BEIJING —
A Chinese court Tuesday rejected a Canadian drug convict’s appeal of a death sentence in what appeared to be an effort to step up pressure on Canada to release a detained executive of tech giant Huawei.
Ottawa condemned the ruling and appealed to Beijing to grant clemency to Robert Schellenberg. His sentence was abruptly increased from a 15-year prison term to death after the Dec. 1, 2018, arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou on U.S. charges related to possible dealings with Iran.
In separate cases, two other Canadians, a former diplomat and an entrepreneur, were arrested on spying charges as China demanded Meng’s release.
The Higher People’s Court of Liaoning Province in northeast China rejected Schellenberg’s appeal and sent the case to the Chinese high court for review, as required by law before death sentences can be carried out.
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“We condemn the verdict in the strongest possible terms and call on China to grant Robert clemency,” the Canadian ambassador to Beijing, Dominic Barton, told reporters. He criticized the penalty as “cruel and inhumane.”
“His retrial and subsequent sentence were arbitrary,” Barton said by phone from the northeastern city of Shenyang, where he attended the appeals court hearing.
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Schellenberg was convicted of smuggling nearly 450 pounds of methamphetamine, according to the court. He was sentenced in November 2018 to 15 years in prison and re-sentenced to death in January 2019 after a one-day retrial.
Former Canadian diplomat Michael Kovrig and entrepreneur Michael Spavor were detained in China in December 2018 and later charged with spying.
A Canadian judge will hear final arguments in the next few weeks over whether Meng should be extradited to the U.S. She has been living under house arrest in Vancouver.
Canada, along with Australia and the Philippines, is among a growing group of countries that face arrests of their citizens, trade boycotts and other pressure from Beijing over political disputes.
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The United States and other governments have warned their citizens of a “heightened risk of arbitrary detention” in China for purposes other than law enforcement.
Barton said he would travel later Tuesday to the northeastern city of Dandong to see Spavor.
Barton said a ruling in Spavor’s case could come Wednesday. As for Kovrig, he said, “we have not received any indication of that.”
Asked whether the three cases were linked to Meng’s, Barton said, “I don’t think it’s a coincidence these are happening right now while events are going on in Vancouver.” He said the case was “part of the geopolitical process of what is happening.”
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The ambassador said Canadian diplomats talked with Schellenberg after the ruling but declined to give details.
“He is remarkably composed,” Barton said. “We had a good conversation.”
Diplomats from the U.S., Germany, Australia and France attended Tuesday’s hearing, according to Barton. He expressed thanks to them and to other governments for expressing support for Canada.
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Two other Canadians, Fan Wei and Xu Weihong, also were sentenced to death on drug charges in separate cases in 2019 as relations between Beijing and Ottawa deteriorated.
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The U.S. wants the Huawei’s Meng, who is the company founder’s daughter, extradited to face charges that she lied to banks in Hong Kong in connection with dealings with Iran that might violate trade sanctions.
The Chinese government has criticized the case as a politically motivated attempt to hamper the country’s industrial development.