Following Schellenberg's death sentence, Canada has updated its travel advice for China, urging citizens to "exercise a high degree of caution due to the risk of arbitrary enforcement of local laws"....So that's enough meth to kill — what? — close to a million human beings. I'm just trying to understand the proportionality (if he, in fact, committed the crime).
"It is of extreme concern to us as a government, as it should be to all our international friends and allies, that China has chosen to begin to arbitrarily apply the death penalty," [said Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau]....
The Canadian, who is believed to be 36, was arrested in 2014 and accused of planning to smuggle almost 500lb (227kg) of methamphetamine from China to Australia.
January 15, 2019
"I am not a drug smuggler. I came to China as a tourist."
Said Robert Lloyd Schellenberg, quoted in "Canadian's death sentence in China 'horrific', family says" (BBC).
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
59 comments:
Somebody plotting to smuggle 500 lbs of meth probably has a history of drug dealing, even if on not so great a scale. Some reporter ought to look in to that.
Revenge for the Huawei arrest in Vancouver. Also, they will likely not kill him. It's just leverage. However, a term in a Chinese prison in Inner Mongolia Province is by itself hazardous to your health, so maybe he should ask them to get it over with anyway.
Trudeau needs to grow some balls. Either cut off travel to China or STFU if this bothers you. Another pussy western leader.
I'm just trying to understand the proportionality (if he, in fact, committed the crime).
He was originally sentenced to 15 years in prison. He was resentenced to death after Canada arrested the daughter of the Huawei chairman. She is accused of evading sanctions on Iran.
China said they would retaliate and it looks like they did. The Chinese allowed foreign reporters in the courtroom so they could broadcast the death sentence to the world.
Communists don't care about fairness or proportionality.
was arrested in 2014 and accused of planning to smuggle almost 500lb (227kg) of methamphetamine from China to Australia.
Look, I'm all for doling out severe punishment for a foreigner smuggling such a crazy amount of such a dangerous and destructive drug. Not death, but certainly a very long prison sentence. And of course there's the blatant political implications of all this. But all that said...
I'd be interested to know what the evidence of this "plan" is. It seems like planning to do a thing is probably a lesser crime than actually doing it. I mean, I assume the Chinese government has some sort of real case here, but that might be assuming too much. It is the Chinese government we're talking about here. It's possible he may have really been picked up for some small infraction, like he had some weed on him or whatever, and some nasty party functionary with a hearty xenophobic hatred of all foreigners decided to make an example. I don't know, but I'd like to know more.
People upset by this are free to boycott Chinese made goods. Hit them where it hurts. And hit them repeatedly.
fuck proportionality. given the difficulty of detection disproportion unto terrified deterrence is meet and just. so say I what say you?
I’m in favor of legalization of marijuana, and a mandatory death penalty on the first offense for dealers of methamphetamine. No other drug so effectively sucks the soul out of a human body.
Another "shithole country" if you ask me.
"I am not a drug smuggler. I came to China as a tourist."
- Overheard being said by Lord Napier (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Napier,_9th_Lord_Napier) while firing upon Chinese junks in Hong Kong harbor, circa 1834
Unless they have endless appeals in China, it should be done and out of the news in a couple of weeks, I imagine.
You have to be crazy to do anything illegal in some countries.
It's as stupid as being a burglar in a gun friendly state.
Just do your shit somewhere else.
Why, oh why, do we persist in thinking other countries--especially totalitarian ones--live by our rules? Even Western Europe does not have basic rights that we--until recently--have enjoyed, like freedom of speech. People in the UK have been arrested for insulting Islam. IIRC, even Canada does.
He's gotten caught in Canadia a bunch of times.
Latest one(s):
CDS - 5(2) Possession for the purpose of trafficking
Creeping with intent to mope.
The trouble with drug smuggling is it's too easy to frame somebody, at least if Hollywood film plots are to be believed.
What a mess. Trudeau, meth trafficker, meth users, China, people who want us to appease China by surrendering IP - can't they all lose?
China is a communist totalitarian shit hole with horrible environmental degradation.
Don't buy China if you can help it.
Your links don't work, Fernandistein. And I couldn't get any returns on a search for First Name = "Robert" Last Name = "Schellenberg" on that site.
Hillary Clinton is made in China. She and Bill made all sorts of kill.
So that's enough meth to kill — what? — close to a million human beings.
It's enough meth to kill every man, woman and child on the planet. If dropped on them, one after another, from a moderate height.
If sold to drug users, it would result in some number of overdoses, but that number would probably be four orders of magnitude less than the million you estimate.
If the guy is an actual scumbag drug dealer I hope Xi sends Trudeau the bill for the bullet.
Mrs. Dink and I are looking to go on vacation in February. For some reason. Iran, North Korea, and China are not among our choices. Nor is any country in the middle east, excepting Israel.
BBC report has details on his history.
China is not unique in Asia on this matter.
Foreigners smuggling drugs are risking the death penalty in Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and Taiwan. There have been similar controversies in all these places over the years.
This is one reason I don't like traveling to foreign countries. The law isn't the same.
Also, I saw "Midnight Express":
"On October 6, 1970, on holiday in Istanbul, Turkey, American college student Billy Hayes straps 2 kg of hashish blocks to his chest. While attempting to board a plane back to the United States with his girlfriend, Billy is arrested by Turkish police on high alert for fear of terrorist attacks. He is strip-searched, photographed, and questioned. After a while, a shadowy American, who is never named but is nicknamed "Tex" by Billy for his thick Texan accent, arrives, takes Billy to a police station, and translates Billy's English for one of the detectives. Billy says that he bought the hashish from a taxicab driver and offers to help the police track him down in exchange for his release. Billy goes with the police to a nearby market and points out the cab driver, but when they go to arrest the cabbie, it becomes apparent that the police have no intention of keeping their end of the deal with Billy. He sees an opportunity and makes a run for it, only to get cornered and recaptured by the mysterious American. During his first night in holding at a local jail, a freezing-cold Billy sneaks out of his cell and steals a blanket. Later that night, he is rousted from his cell and brutally beaten by chief guard Hamidou for the theft. He wakes a few days later in Sağmalcılar Prison, surrounded by fellow Western prisoners Jimmy (an American who is in for stealing two candlesticks from a mosque), Max (an English heroin addict), and Erich (a Swede, also in for drug smuggling), who help him to his feet. Jimmy tells Billy that the prison is a dangerous place for foreigners like them and that no one can be trusted, even young children. Billy meets his father along with a US representative and a Turkish lawyer to discuss what will happen to him. Billy is sent to trial for his case during which the angry prosecutor makes a case against him for drug smuggling. The lead judge is sympathetic to Billy and gives him only a four-year sentence for drug possession. Billy and his father are horrified at the outcome, but their Turkish lawyer insists that it is a very good result. Jimmy tries to encourage Billy to become part of an escape attempt through the prison's tunnels. Believing that he is to be released soon, Billy rebuffs Jimmy, who goes on to attempt an escape himself. Caught, he is brutally beaten. Then Billy finds out one day in 1974 that his sentence is overturned by the Turkish High Court in Ankara after an appeal by the prosecution. The prosecutor originally wished to have him found guilty of smuggling and not the lesser charge of possession. He is shocked to find out that he now has to serve 30 years for his crime. Billy goes along with a prison break that Jimmy has masterminded. Billy, Jimmy, and Max try to escape through the catacombs below the prison, but their plans are revealed to the prison authorities by fellow-prisoner Rifki. His stay becomes harsh and brutal: terrifying scenes of physical and mental torture follow one another, and Billy has a breakdown. He beats up and bites out Rifki's tongue and is sent to the prison's ward for the insane, where he wanders in a daze among the other disturbed and catatonic prisoners. These scenes are moving and show Billy's profound pain. In 1975, Billy's girlfriend, Susan, comes to see him. Devastated at what has happened to Billy, she tells him that he has to escape or he will die in there. She leaves him a scrapbook with money hidden inside as "a picture of your good friend Mr. Franklin from the bank" in the hope that Billy can use it to help him escape. Her visit moves Billy strongly, and he regains his senses. During their visit, in which they were separated by a glass window, Susan undresses her top and presses her breasts against the window, an iconic scene in the movie."
Sookum, what about the drugs between weed and meth? Cocaine? Maybe 15 to life? Im not up on the current plethora of drugs.
Having had our fill of third world countries, we're planning a trip to Paris before it becomes one.
During their visit, in which they were separated by a glass window, Susan undresses her top and presses her breasts against the window, an iconic scene in the movie.
If you are going to include a link in your comment, that is the link-worthy portion.
It's not a retaliation. It's a warning.
With all respect for human life, in terms of international relations, a drug dealer is not on the same level as a daughter of a well-connected billionaire from the second biggest economy on earth with a stash of nukes thrown in.
It's as stupid as being a burglar in a gun friendly state.
The only person carjacked in Arizona in recent history is the left wing Mayor of Tucson who was carjacked in front of his house.
Every non-left winger in Arizona is armed.
Her visit moves Billy strongly, and he regains his senses. During their visit, in which they were separated by a glass window, Susan undresses her top and presses her breasts against the window...
It shouldn't take a copy editor to realize that the description makes more sense if you swap the order of the sentences.
Ann Althouse said...
This is one reason I don't like traveling to foreign countries. The law isn't the same.
I've been to about 40 countries including China, Russia, and Vietnam. Yes, the laws in other countries are different but the big ones are pretty much the same. Don't murder anyone. Don't rob anyone. Don't do anything with drugs, especially in some places like Singapore (which I love) that have the death penalty for drug smuggling. They aren't shy about hanging people and don't take decades to do it, either. I confine my activities to taking photos (and knowing where not to take photos, such as around military bases) and sometimes trying the local food. Don't be stupid and you'll be fine over 99% of the time. It also is a good idea to keep your comments about local politicians and potentates to yourself. For example, it's against the law to criticize the royal family of Thailand.
The National Geographic channel has a show (perhaps sponsored by the US State Department) titled Locked Up Abroad. Most of the people (not all of them Americans) were caught in drug related offenses. You think US prisons are bad (and yeah, they are), try the prisons in much of the rest of the world.
It's not the 3rd world govts so much as the criminals.
This gentleman just did not understand that selling meth made in China to Western users is a profitable enterprise reserved only for the Chinese insiders.
How does one "exercise caution" if Chinese actions are really arbitrary and therefore unpredictable? The only logical answer would be to not go, at all.
"This gentleman just did not understand that selling meth made in China to Western users is a profitable enterprise reserved only for the Chinese insiders."
Exactly so. And fentanyl also.
Your links don't work, Fernandistein.
They worked for me while I was "logged in" I guess (I always check links), but now they're broken for me too. It's a really shitty website (CA gubmint), so you're not missing much.
And I couldn't get any returns on a search for First Name = "Robert" Last Name = "Schellenberg" on that site.
I got his list of what I thought were his 11 arrests, but now I see there is only ONE ("253(a) care or control vehicle or vessel while impaired") so what I wrote before is WRONG.
He has one arrest for DUI in 2007.
Here's the first names of the other Schellenberg criminals - what's up with all the A-names ?
ALANA Marie (she's a bad one!)
ALEX Bradley
ALEXANDER William
ALLEN
AMANDA Rose
AMBER Lee
ANDY
BENDIGO Jacobi Michael (boo!)
This is one reason I don't like traveling to foreign countries.
I try to avoid New Mexico; they hire rabid bats.
Oh... and by the way, given that most of fentanyl that's been killing off thousands of Americans in deplorable flyover land is produced in China with (doubtless) full knowledge by their government and possibly even intent, I certainly don't believe that the Chinese government has some sort of moral authority here when it comes to dangerous drugs.
Not that it matters of course. This has nothing to do with the actual crime anyway.
"This is one reason I don't like traveling to foreign countries. The law isn't the same."
Maybe one can avoid breaking the laws when traveling out of the country, but the problem is the lack of due process compared to America (no presumption of innocence, lesser burden of proof for instance)--if not outright corruption. Or insanity, such as in the Amanda Knox prosecutors. Read up on the American woman who was imprisoned for years because on an afternoon cruise ship excursion in Turkey, she inadvertently bought a small genuine archaic figurine from a street urchin. Heck, right now good friends are trying (fruitlessly) to fight an internationally known car rental company who charged them $3000!! to repair a non-existent "scuff" to a car they rented in Ireland. They couldn't take the time to argue much when they turned the car in because they had to make their flight to continue on their European itinerary. Tourists are easy marks in so many ways. Shudder.
Althouse doesn't like leaving home because some Canadian drug trafficker got caught in China? Someone please diagram the logic for me.
500 lbs of meth?
In other words, 45 million doses of Adderall.
That's a lot of amped up kids!
John Henry
Blogger Skookum John said...
No other drug so effectively sucks the soul out of a human body.
Adderall?
Made by Shire, endorsed by teachers and educators everywhere. Well, everywhere in the US anyway. Not so much in other countries.
Sweden requires the health minister sign off on all ADD diagnoses and Adderall prescriptions. Not the Ministry, the Minister.
John Henry
Blogger Nonapod said...
It seems like planning to do a thing is probably a lesser crime than actually doing it.
Not in the US. Not if 2 or more people are involved. Then it becomes a "conspiracy" and the conspiracy doesn't even have to be to violate a law to land someone in jail.
I was just reading a bunch of Twitter threads this morning, with transcripts, of the Concord case. Concord is the Russians who are charged with conspiring to influence the election in 2016. They screwed everything up by actually answering the subpoena and the transcripts are fascinating.
Influencing an election, at least in the ways claimed, violates no statute. Conspiring to do so, again, violating no statute, is against the law.
Or so they are charged. We'll have to see if a jury finds them guilty.
@techno_fog is following and Tweeting about the case in great detail and it is very interesting.
John Henry
Sort of along the same lines, I saw this at Marginal Revolution:
China fact (?) of the day
by Tyler Cowen January 14, 2019 at 6:06 pm in
Current Affairs Data Source
China Daily reported Friday that unnatural deaths have taken the lives of 72 mainland billionaires over the past eight years. (Do the math.)
[snip]
Mortality rate notwithstanding, what’s more disturbing is how these mega wealthy souls met their demise. According to China Daily, 15 were murdered, 17 committed suicide, seven died from accidents and 19 died from illness. Oh, yes, and 14 were executed. (Welcome to China.)
I don’t know about you but I find it somewhat improbable that among such a small population there could be so many “suicides,” “accidents” and “death by disease” (the average age of those who died from illness was only 48).
[Emphasis added-JRH]
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2019/01/china-fact-day-11.html
The MR link has links to the underlying stories and more info.
John Henry
"I am not a drug smuggler. I came to China as a tourist."
every single solitary tourist, IN THE HISTORY OF THE EARTH!!! has conspired to smuggle Hundreds of KILOS of meth. Yet, they pick on This One Guy! this is So Unfair!!
Blogger RigelDog said...
Heck, right now good friends are trying (fruitlessly) to fight an internationally known car rental company who charged them $3000!!
I spent a couple weeks working in Costa Rica in November. My son was thinking to come with me and wanted to rent a car.
He changed his mind when I showed him the govt website. If you get in an accident where there is a personal injury, it said, you may not be able to leave the country until it is resolved and this can take months to years. regardless of insurance coverage.
I've read that in France, anyone getting involved in an accident is put up in a govt apartment (like a jail in that you can't leave but sort of like a former Motel 6 for comfort and ameneties) until the police sort everything out.
No way will I ever drive in any country other than the US. Or Canada.
John Henry
From China to Australia. Where is that 500lb of dope now? Is it evidence? Who made the dope? Where are the dope makers? Inquiring minds want to know.
Foreign devils, stay home. Go to China at your own peril. You can't afford to stay in their jail incommunicado with the outside world for months and years without trial. Nothing there is worth the risk.
A recent case: a Chinese spy was caught in Canada, an extradition was requested by the US. The spy was head of some sort of aviation start-up who used his position to steal trade secrets and plans from other aviation concerns. He admitted guilt but fought the extradition.
A Canadian missionary couple who were working at the North Korean-Chinese border trying to help the refugees coming from NK. They were there for more than 20 years. China arrested them in the middle of the night accusing them of spying.
After fighting four years against extradition, the Chines spy relented and was tried and sentenced for time served. The Canadian couple was released.
China is an awful place. A pig with lipsticks is still a pig. A totalitarian hell with money is still a totalitarian hell.
I have seen this movie.
This guy will return to the US to fight crime in Gotham City.
our Professor Althouse mentioned the old movie Midnight Run.
Among the crimes that Billie commits, are:
SMUGGLING 2 kg of hashish blocks
ESCAPING CINFINMENT and makes a run for it,
THEFT steals a blanket.
courts fine him "guilty of smuggling" (well yeah; 4 and a half POUNDS of hash isn't personal use)
ESCAPE FROM PRISON Billy goes along with a prison break
ASSAULT WITH INTENT TO MAIM He beats up and bites out Rifki's tongue
then our Professor mentions The Only Part of the Movie that i enjoyed as a young teenager
then she doesn't mention that he performs fellatio on a guard, AND THE KILLS HIM, before making his escape.
The movie made a deal about how he was an innocent man, i never saw any thing innocent about him. But, I DID see a great pair of tits!
There is a sense of adventure in travelling.
More so when there is a degree of uncertainty.
Whether you have figured out the native systems or not.
Whether you can deal with the issues.
The feeling of achievement when you have sorted out your troubles and understood something foreign.
And indeed the feeling of the possibility that things will become...difficult.
I once walked the grim streets of Aden, Yemen, at one of those times when things were unsettled. It had that sense of the little hairs at the back of the neck. Its odd, I know, but I feel that I want to go back.
Back before I lost my health insurance due to Obamacare, I used to take Vyvanse and Adderall for my ADHD. It not only worked but I was FULLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL of energy and vigor.
Now I rely on coffee and Diet Dr Pepper.
THEOLDMAN
500lb (227kg) of methamphetamine!!!!
Go ahead China... put a bullet in the back of his head.
Fine with me!
If 200 mg is lethal then 5 deaths per gram, 5000 deaths per kg, 227*5000 deaths is a bit over a million, yeah.
Post a Comment