Skip to main content

Chinese court sentences Canadian drug trafficker to death six years after his trial

A Chinese court sentenced a Canadian to death for drug offences on Tuesday.

The two main accused in the case – the Canadian identified by the Jiangmen Intermediate People’s Court in Jiangmen, Guangdong province, as Fan Wei, and an individual named Wu Ziping, whose nationality was not specified – were both given death sentences.

An American identified as Mark, and Mexican nationals named in court translations as Leon, Pedro, Oscar and Carrett were given suspended death sentences and jailed for life, according to an online court statement.

The prison terms of four other defendants – Zeng Xiangliang, Li Rongfu, Liao Jianming and Liu Zhimin – were not specified.

The group were found guilty of setting up a drug factory in Taishan, where they produced more than 63kg (140lb) of methamphetamine and 365.9 grams of dimethylamphetamine between July and November 2012.

The court notice said the convicted could appeal against the sentence, adding that consular officials were present during the court proceedings.

The gang were detained in late 2012 and put on trial a year later, but the court did not reach a verdict until Tuesday.

The American is believed to be Mark Swidan, who was detained on drug charges in November 2012.

Swidan, now 45 years old, is originally from Houston, Texas.

Swidan’s mother told Newsweek in 2016 that her son had been “tortured” while in prison, and had tried to take his own life.

Amnesty International researcher Doriane Lau said the two-year suspended death sentences handed to the American and Mexican nationals might not mean execution.

“Effectively, a death sentence with a two-year reprieve is usually commuted to a prison term after two years of good behaviour,” Lau said.

The Mexican embassy said it was waiting for further instructions from the Mexican foreign ministry. 

The Canadian embassy did not respond to a request for comment.

The US embassy said it was aware of the case and would continue to monitor it.

“Nothing is more important to us than the safety and welfare of American citizens,” an embassy spokesman said.

In January, a court in Dalian, Liaoning province, sentenced Canadian Robert Lloyd Schellenberg to death for drug trafficking.

The sentencing of Schellenberg came after the arrests of two Canadians, former diplomat Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor. China said the two had conspired to steal state secrets.

Critics said the arrests of Kovrig and Spavor were retaliation for the arrest of Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wenzhou, which was carried out at the request of the US.

The United States regards Huawei as a national security threat and has accused it of conspiring to violate US sanctions. Meng, who is out on bail, and Huawei have denied the charges.

China executes more people than any other country in the world, according to Amnesty International, and there have been cases of foreign nationals sentenced to death for drug trafficking.

In 2009, British national Akmal Shaikh was executed after 4kg of heroin was found in his possession at an airport in Urumqi in Xinjiang.

Source: scmp.com, Keegan Elmer, April 30, 2019


⚑ | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com.


Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running! DONATE!



"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde

Most viewed (Last 7 days)

'No Warning': The Death Penalty In Japan

Stakes for wrongful convictions are high in Japan, where the death penalty has broad public support despite criticism over how it is carried out. Tokyo: Capital punishment in Japan is under scrutiny again after the world's longest-serving death row prisoner, Iwao Hakamada, was awarded $1.4 million in compensation this week following his acquittal last year in a retrial. Stakes for wrongful convictions are high in Japan, where the death penalty has broad public support despite international criticism over how it is carried out.

Louisiana's First Nitrogen Execution Reflects Broader Method Shift

Facing imminent execution by lethal gas earlier this week, Jessie Hoffman Jr. — a Louisiana man convicted of abducting, raping and murdering a 28-year-old woman in 1996 — went to court with a request: Please allow me to be shot instead. In a petition filed with the U.S. Supreme Court on March 16 seeking a stay of his execution by nitrogen hypoxia, a protocol that had yet to be tested in the state, Hoffman requested execution by firing squad as an alternative.

A second South Carolina death row inmate chooses execution by firing squad

Columbia, S.C. — A South Carolina death row inmate on Friday chose execution by firing squad, just five weeks after the state carried out its first death by bullets. Mikal Mahdi, who pleaded guilty to murder for killing a police officer in 2004, is scheduled to be executed April 11. Mahdi, 41, had the choice of dying by firing squad, lethal injection or the electric chair. He will be the first inmate to be executed in the state since Brad Sigmon chose to be shot to death on March 7. A doctor pronounced Sigmon dead less than three minutes after three bullets tore into his heart.

USA | Federal death penalty possible for Mexican cartel boss behind 1985 DEA agent killing

Rafael Caro Quintero, extradited from Mexico in 2022, appeared in Brooklyn court as feds weigh capital charges for the torture and murder of Agent Enrique Camarena NEW YORK — The death penalty is on the table for notorious drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero, the so-called “narco of narcos” who orchestrated the torture and murder of a DEA agent in 1985, according to federal prosecutors. “It is a possibility. The decision has not yet been made, but it is going through the process,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Saritha Komatireddy said in Brooklyn Federal Court Wednesday.

South Carolina | Spiritual adviser of condemned inmate: 'We're more than the worst thing we've done'

(RNS) — When 67-year-old Brad Sigmon was put to death on March 7 in South Carolina for the murder of his then-girlfriend's parents, it was the first time in 15 years that an execution in the United States had been carried out by a firing squad. United Methodist minister Hillary Taylor, Sigmon's spiritual adviser since 2020, said the multifaceted, months long effort to save Sigmon's life, and to provide emotional and spiritual support for his legal team, and the aftermath of his execution has been a "whirlwind" said Taylor, the director of South Carolinians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty.

Execution date set for prisoner transferred to Oklahoma to face death penalty

An inmate who was transferred to Oklahoma last month to face the death penalty now has an execution date. George John Hanson, also known as John Fitzgerald Hanson, is scheduled to die on June 12 for the 1999 murder of 77-year-old Mary Bowles.  The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals on Tuesday set the execution date. The state’s Pardon and Parole Board has a tentative date of May 7 for Hanson’s clemency hearing, executive director Tom Bates said.

Inside Florida's Death Row: A dark cloud over the Sunshine State

Florida's death penalty system has faced numerous criticisms and controversies over the years - from execution methods to the treatment of Death Row inmates The Sunshine State remains steadfast in its enforcement of capital punishment, upholding a complex system that has developed since its reinstatement in 1976. Florida's contemporary death penalty era kicked off in 1972 following the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Furman v. Georgia , which temporarily put a stop to executions across the country. Swiftly amending its laws, Florida saw the Supreme Court affirm the constitutionality of the death penalty in 1976's Gregg v. Georgia case.

Bangladesh | Botswana Woman Executed for Drug Trafficking

Dhaka, Bangladesh – Lesedi Molapisi, a Botswana national convicted of drug trafficking, was executed in Bangladesh on Friday, 21 March 2025. The 31-year-old was hanged at Dhaka Central Jail after exhausting all legal avenues to appeal her death sentence. Molapisi was arrested in January 2023 upon arrival at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka, where customs officials discovered 3.1 kilograms of heroin hidden in her luggage. Following a trial under Bangladesh’s Narcotics Control Act, she was sentenced to death in May 2024. Her execution was initially delayed due to political unrest in the country but was carried out last week.

Oklahoma executes Wendell Grissom

Grissom used some of his last words on Earth to apologize to everyone he hurt and said that he prays they can find forgiveness for their own sake. As for his execution, he said it was a mercy. Oklahoma executed Wendell Arden Grissom on Thursday for the murder of 23-year-old Amber Matthews in front of her best friend’s two young daughters in 2005.  Grissom, 56, was executed by lethal injection at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester and pronounced dead at 10:13 a.m. local time, becoming the first inmate to be put to death by the state in 2025 and the ninth in the United States this year. 

564 People On Death Row In India, Highest Since The Turn Of The Century

In 90% of of all death penalty sentences in 2024, trial courts imposed sentences in the absence of adequate information about the accused, finds a recent report Bengaluru: Following the uproar and the widespread protests after the August 2024 rape and murder of a medical professional in Kolkata’s RG Kar hospital, there were demands for death penalty for the accused. The state government passed the Aparajita Woman and Child (West Bengal Criminal Laws Amendment) Bill 2024 (awaiting presidential assent) which included mandatory death sentence for rape which results in death of the victim or if the victim is left in a vegetative state, despite such a mandatory sentence being unconstitutional.