Huawei connection? China court upholds death sentence of Canadian citizen

A Canadian citizen sentenced to death in China for drug smuggling has lost his appeal. The Chinese court ruled that there was "sufficient evidence" to prove his crime.

Huawei connection
Canada has protested against the ruling as being influenced by the extradition battle involving senior Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou in Canada.

The Canadian ambassador to China Dominic Barton said: It was "no coincidence" that the verdict was released while an extradition battle involving senior Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou was ongoing in Canada.

15-year jail sentence turned into a death sentence
Robert Lloyd Schellenberg was sentenced to 15 years in jail.
He went into appeal against the verdict, but the appeal court gave even harsher punishment - death sentence - in 2019.

The verdict has further strained relations between Canada and China.

Charges and denial
Spavor Schellenberg was detained in 2014. He was charged with planning to smuggle almost 500lb (227kg) of methamphetamine from China to Australia.
Spavor denies the charges and claims he went to China as a tourist.
He was sentenced to 15 years in jail in November 2018.

Huawei executive arrested
This was followed up by Canada with the detention of Meng Wanzhou, a senior executive at Chinese tech giant Huawei, on a US extradition warrant.

China had warned of unspecified consequences and asked for the release of Ms Meng.

Hostage diplomacy charge
The daughter of the founder of the Chinese Telecoms company is currently detained in Canada.

Canada had earlier accused China of conducting "hostage diplomacy".

Beijing denies the cases are linked.