Canadian’s appeal in drug case to be heard in Chinese court on Saturday

Dec 27, 2018 | 10:15 AM

OTTAWA — China’s state media say a Canadian charged with smuggling drugs will be in court for an appeal on Saturday.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Hua Chunying said in a daily briefing today that she didn’t know much about the case, suggesting it’s not related to the arrests of two other Canadians on national-security grounds earlier this month.

Former diplomat Michael Kovrig and businessman Michael Spavor were picked up shortly after Canada arrested Huawei Technologies executive Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver, on an American request for her to face fraud charges.

Chinese officials haven’t called those arrests acts of retaliation but they have pointedly compared the cases, insisting that Kovrig and Spavor have been detained in accordance with Chinese laws but that Meng’s arrest was illegal.

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The Global Times, an English-language publication of the official People’s Daily, reports today that Robert Lloyd Schellenberg’s case is in an appeal phase, after he was previously convicted by a Chinese court.

The paper reports that Chinese criminal law calls for minimum sentences of 15 years for drug trafficking, and that a British citizen was executed in 2009 for smuggling four kilograms of heroin.

The Canadian Press