China’s top court has overturned the death sentence of a Canadian national convicted of drug trafficking in a sign of a diplomatic thaw between Beijing and Ottawa.
The ruling, in a case that had strained relations between the two countries, comes days after prime minister Mark Carney travelled to China to restore trade ties with Beijing as tariff pressure from the US intensified.
China’s supreme people’s court on Friday struck down the death sentence against Robert Lloyd Schellenberg, the New York Times reported, citing one of his lawyers, Zhang Dongshuo, as saying.
Schellenberg was initially sentenced to 15 years in prison, but the term was later increased on appeal, a decision that coincided with the arrest in Canada of Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou.
Schellenberg was detained on drug charges in 2014 and held in northeastern Dalian, before China–Canada relations deteriorated sharply following the 2018 arrest of Mr Wanzhou in Vancouver.
Officials in Beijing responded by arresting two Canadians, Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig, on espionage charges, a move Ottawa denounced as retaliatory.
In January 2019, a court in northeast China retried Schellenberg and sentenced him to death, ruling that his earlier 15-year prison term for drug trafficking had been too lenient.
The court accused Schellenberg of being a central player in a scheme to ship narcotics to Australia. Schellenberg has denied wrongdoing.
He will now be retried by the Liaoning High People’s Court.
“Global Affairs Canada (GAC) is aware of a decision issued by the Supreme People’s Court of the People’s Republic of China in Mr Robert Schellenberg’s case,” Canadian foreign ministry spokesperson Thida Ith said in a statement sent to AFP.
Ms Ith said the ministry “will continue to provide consular services to Mr Schellenberg and to his family.” “Canada has advocated for clemency in this case, as it does for all Canadians who are sentenced to the death penalty.”
Last March, China said it executed four Canadian citizens on drug smuggling charges, a move that drew a sharp condemnation from Canada.
However, ties between the two nations have witnessed a steady development since Mr Carney’s visit earlier in January, where he argued that a strategic partnership between China and Canada could set both nations up for the “new world order”.
During Mr Carney’s trip, both nations reached a preliminary agreement to cut tariffs on electric vehicles and canola and vowed to ease trade tensions.
Canada has long been one of Washington’s closest allies, geographically and otherwise. But Beijing is hoping that president Donald Trump’s economic and military aggression against other countries will erode that longstanding relationship.
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