Back in 2014, Robert Schellenberg was arrested on charges of trying to smuggle almost 500lb (227kg) of methamphetamine from the northern Chinese port city of Dalin to Australia, by way of using plastic pellets hidden in rubber tires.
From there, he was detained for 15 months before his first trial, ultimately being convicted of drug smuggling and handed a 15-year sentence in November of 2018. Two other Chinese men were also sentenced in the case, with one man given life imprisonment while the other received a suspended death sentence.
Schellenberg then appealed his 15-year sentence and was re-tried in Dalin on Monday (Jan. 14), in which Chinese authorities decided his previous sentence was too light, and he was subsequently handed a death sentence for his role in international drug smuggling.
Schellenberg, now 36 years of age and a native of British Columbia, has long maintained his innocence, stating in court “I am not a drug smuggler. I am not a drug user. I am a normal person. I am innocent.” Schellenberg also claimed that a friend had recommended a translator for his visit to China, and that the translator ended up having connections to the international drug-smuggling ring.
It should be noted that Schellenberg had a reputation as a small-city drug dealer in British Columbia, where according to online databases he was convicted 11 times for drug and impaired-driving offenses between 2003-2012 and served two jail terms.
Meanwhile, much speculation suggests that the new sentence is retaliation for the detention of a top executive within China’s Huawei technology giant, in which the Huawei CFO, Meng Wanzhou, was arrested in Vancouver back in early December on suspicion of violating US sanctions against Iran.
Though Meng was released on bail a few weeks ago, she remains on house-arrest in British Columbia while the US pursues her extradition, as Chinese authorities have responded furiously to her detainment and have threatened consequences. Due to the timing of the two cases, experts believe that Schellenberg's death sentence is linked to the ongoing feud between China and Canada.
“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,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told reporters in Ottawa, while Margaret Lewis, a law professor at New Jersey’s Seton Hall University and an expert on the Chinese legal system, states that “Unless there is some dramatic turn of events, this is marching toward execution in the not too distant future.”
Source: theprovince.com