A Chinese court has upheld the death sentence for Robert Lloyd Schellenberg, a Canadian convicted of drug smuggling in China in 2018.
The Liaoning High People's Court said in a statement Tuesday that they rejected his appeal because "the facts identified in the first trial were clear, the evidence was true and sufficient, the conviction was accurate, the sentence was appropriate."
According to the court that handed down the death sentence in 2019, Schellenberg was dispatched to Dalian by drug traffickers in November 2014 to orchestrate the smuggling of more than 222 kilograms (489.4 pounds) of methamphetamine from the Chinese port city to Australia.
Schellenberg and an accomplice bought tools and tires in an attempt to repackage the drugs before shipping them out in containers, according to the prosecution.
The Canadian was said to have inspected the cargo, assessed the workload and decided on a shipping date. After his accomplice turned himself into the police, Schellenberg fled Dalian and was arrested in southern China on December 1, 2014, when he tried to fly to Thailand, the court said.
He was first tried in March 2016 and was convicted in November 2018. Upon receiving a sentence of 15 years in prison, he appealed the verdict. A high court ordered a retrial in late December 2018 when the prosecution said they had uncovered new evidence to prove Schellenberg's principal role in the case. He received the death sentence a month later.
