Canadian to face drug charges in China court

A Canadian is to appear before a court in northeastern China on Saturday for drugs charges, a government-run news portal said, amid frosty relations between Beijing and Ottawa.

The Liaoning People's High Court identified the man as Robert Lloyd Schellenberg.

In a brief statement published Wednesday, the court said he is appealing a drug smuggling case at 2:00pm (0600 GMT) on Saturday but gave no further details.

A government news portal, runsky.com, said Schellenberg is Canadian and had smuggled an "enormous amount" of drugs.

It mockingly admired the Canadian's gall for "actually daring to smuggle drugs into China," which still has the death penalty for drug trafficking.

The Global Times, which is close to the Chinese authorities, said that under Chinese law, the penalty for smuggling or manufacturing at least a kilo of opium, 50 grams of heroine or methylaniline is 15 years to life in jail, or in extreme cases, the death penalty.

It noted that in 2009, China executed Briton Amal Shaikh after he was convicted of smuggling four kilos (nine pounds) of heroin.

Robert Walker, a Canadian foreign ministry spokesman, said in a statement that the ministry had "been following this case for several years and has been providing consular assistance to the Canadian citizen since they were first detained in Liaoning, China."