A Chinese court on Tuesday rejected a Canadian man's appeal against his death sentence for drug smuggling, in the latest move that will further deteriorate relations between the two countries.
Robert Schellenberg was detained in 2014 and handed a 15-year prison sentence in 2018. In 2019, the court in Dalian, northeastern China, sentenced him to death even though he denied the allegations and challenged the ruling.
The rejection of the appeal came after Canadian authorities in Vancouver in December 2018 arrested Meng Wanzhou, a top official of China's tech giant Huawei Technologies Co, on US fraud charges linked to an alleged breach of sanctions on Iran.
Two Canadians living and working in China, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, were subsequently taken into custody on allegations they were harming China's national security. It is feared that they were detained in retaliation for Meng's arrest.
In 2019, Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau criticised China for "arbitrarily" sentencing Schellenberg to death.
