Another Canadian gets death sentence

OTTAWA • Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland says Canada is telling China that it strongly opposes the death penalty, after a second Canadian was sentenced to death on drug charges by a Chinese court this week.

Ye Jianhui was sentenced Friday by the Foshan Municipal Intermediate Court in the southern province of Guangdong after being found guilty of manufacturing and transporting illegal drugs.

This comes one day after Canadian Xu Weihong was also sentenced to death by a different court in the same province.

Freeland said Canada has long opposed the death penalty as a cruel and inhumane form of punishment and that Canadian officials will keep making this clear to China.

She did not, however, link these two cases to the ongoing diplomatic tensions between Canada and China over the arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou.

She has previously described China’s detention of Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor as apparent retaliation for the arrest.

China has denied that their arrest on espionage charges was linked to Meng’s case.

Relations between China and Canada deteriorated sharply after the RCMP detained Meng in Vancouver on a warrant from the United States.

Asked if the sentencing of the Canadian drug offenders was linked to Meng’s case, China’s foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told a briefing on Friday that China’s judicial organs “handle cases independently,” while also adding that “the Canadian side knows the root cause” of difficulties in China-canadian relations.

Ye, a Canadian national, was sentenced after a trial in the southern city of Foshan.

Police found 218 kilograms of white crystals containing MDMA, commonly known as ecstasy, in the room used by Ye and five other men, according to a local media report.

Of the other five men, all Chinese nationals, one was sentenced to death, while the rest were given jail sentences ranging from seven years to life, according to the court notice.