China Sentences Canadian Citizen to Death For Drug Trafficking

Posted by African Examiner Featured, Latest Headlines, World News Tuesday, April 30th, 2019

(AFRICAN EXAMINER) – China has sentenced a Canadian citizen to death for his involvement in drug trafficking.

Canada’s Fan Wei received the death penalty, similar to Wu Ziping, whose nationality was not given, a court in the southern Chinese city of Jiangmen in Guangdong province said on Tuesday.

The two men allegedly headed a group that manufactured and sold drugs.

11 people have been sentenced in the case.

They included a U.S. citizen and four Mexicans, all of whom were sentenced to life in prison.

In January, a Chinese court sentenced Canadian Robert Lloyd Schellenberg to death for smuggling drugs into China after having previously been sentenced to 15 years in prison.

Convicted drug smugglers face long prison sentences or the death penalty in China.

Canada and China have been embroiled in a political confrontation for months.

The trigger was the December arrest of Meng Wanzhou, the Chief Financial Officer of Chinese telecom giant Huawei, in Canada.

Meng, the daughter of the company’s founder, Ren Zhengfei, was arrested at the request of the United States, where the government accuses her of bank and wire fraud in connection with possible violations of U.S. sanctions against Iran.

After Meng’s arrest, two Canadians were detained and investigated for “endangering national security,’’ with some viewing their detainment as China’s retaliation for the proceedings against Meng. (/NAN)