Horror as China executes 4 Canadians over ‘drug crimes’ in ‘inhumane’ killing after ‘refusing to recognise citizenship’

CHINA “inhumanely” executed four Canadian citizens on drugs smuggling charges earlier this year, it has been revealed.

Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly said that all four had been dual citizens, adding that Ottawa would ask for leniency for other Canadians facing the same horrific fate.

Reuters

China executed four Canadian citizens on drugs smuggling charges earlier this year[/caption]

A woman, convicted of murder, shouts as she hears the verdict before being taken to be executed in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou in 2001

Reuters

Canadian Foreign Ministry said that Robert Schellenberg, a Canadian man sentenced to death in 2019 for drug smuggling, had not been executed[/caption]

She said: “There are four Canadians that have been executed and therefore we are strongly condemning what happened.”

Joly added that all four had been convicted on drug charges.

The Canadian Foreign Ministry also revealed that Robert Schellenberg, a Canadian man sentenced to death in 2019 for drug smuggling, had been spared from execution.

Mr Schellenberg has always proclaimed his innocence insisting he came to China as a “tourist.”

At the time of his sentencing, experts said that Schellenberg was being used as a political pawn in a bigger feud between China, Canada and the US.

Ties between the nations have been icy since 2018 when Meng Wanzhou, Chief Financial Officer of Chinese telecoms firm Huawei, was detained in Vancouver at Washington’s request.

Shortly after, China arrested two Canadians in what appeared to be an act of revenge.

Meng and the Canadian duo were released in 2021.

China said on Thursday it acted “in accordance with the law” and suggested the Canadians had been convicted over narcotics offences, saying “combating drug crimes is the common responsibility of all countries”.

“China is a country under the rule of law,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said.

She added that Beijing “treats defendants of different nationalities equally without discrimination” and “handles cases fairly in strict accordance with the law.”

China also “protects the legitimate rights of the parties concerned as well as the consular rights of the Canadian side, in accordance with the law”, Mao claims.

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