China denies detained Canadian has diplomatic immunity on WTOP| BEIJING (AP) — China says a former Canadian diplomat detained in China last month does not enjoy diplomatic immunity, rejecting a complaint from Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Trudeau said last week that Chinese officials are…
BEIJING (AP) — A Chinese court sentenced a Canadian man to death on Monday in a drug smuggling case as tensions heightened between the two countries over Canada’s arrest last month of a top Chinese technology executive.
In a sudden retrial, a Chinese court in northeastern Liaoning province announced that it had given Robert Lloyd Schellenberg the death penalty, reversing an earlier 2016 ruling that sentenced him to 15 years in prison.
The court gave no indication that the penalty could be commuted, but Schellenberg’s fate is likely to be drawn into diplomatic negotiations over China’s demand for the release of Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of the Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau strongly condemned Monday’s proceeding, suggesting that China was using its judicial system to retaliate against Canada. In his strongest comments yet, Trudeau said “all countries around the world” should be concerned that Beijing is acting arbitrarily with its justice system.
“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 a death penalty,” Trudeau said.
Further escalating the diplomatic crisis between the two countries, a Chinese spokeswoman said earlier Monday that Michael Kovrig, a former Canadian diplomat taken into custody in apparent retaliation for Meng’s arrest, was not eligible for diplomatic immunity.
Schellenberg was detained more than four years ago and initially sentenced to 15 years in prison in 2016. But within weeks of Meng’s Dec. 1 arrest an appeals court suddenly reversed that decision, saying the sentence was too lenient, and scheduled Monday’s retrial with just four days’ notice.
The Chinese press began publicizing Schellenberg’s case after Canada detained Meng, the daughter of Huawei’s founder, at the request of the United States, which wants her extradited to face charges that she committed fraud by misleading banks about the company’s business dealings in Iran.
