The head of the law firm representing Canadian Robert Schellenberg says their client “definitely” won’t face the death penalty again after China’s top court overturned the sentence and announced his retrial on drug charges.

Mo Shaoping confirmed in an telephone interview in Mandarin and messages in Chinese that the British Columbia man’s drug smuggling conviction in 2019 has been overturned by the Supreme People’s Court, and the case has now been sent back to the Liaoning Higher People’s Court for retrial.

He said the Liaoning court will appoint three new judges to review the case, and the death penalty “will definitely not be imposed again.”

Mo said in an interview on Monday in China that although the date of the retrial hasn’t been set yet, he expects the proceeding to take about three months.

He said that when his colleague Zhang Dongshuo met Schellenberg on Friday to tell him that he had been granted a retrial, it appeared that Schellenberg’s mental stress had been “significantly relieved.”

Chinese executions of four Canadians raise concerns for Robert Schellenberg

Mo, who is one of China’s most prominent human rights lawyers, said Zhang also met with representatives of the Canadian Embassy after the decision.

Embassy staff continue to visit Schellenberg every month, he said.

Mo said in accordance with Chinese law, any death sentence must be submitted to the Supreme People’s Court for approval.

He said that Schellenberg’s death-sentence review lasted four and a half years before the Supreme People’s Court in China struck down the lower court’s sentence on Feb. 6, in a ruling first reported by the New York Times.

At any time during that review “a death sentence could be approved and carried out,” said Mo.

“Schellenberg also stated his desire to ask us to continue to represent him in the retrial,” added Mo.

The decision came on the heels of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s visit to Beijing, the first by a Canadian leader in eight years.

Schellenberg was detained on drug charges in 2014 before the relationships between Canada and China soured following the arrest in Vancouver of Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou in 2018.

In 2019, the Dalian Intermediate People’s Court held a retrial, then gave Schellenberg the death penalty.

Michael Kovrig was detained in China for more than 1,000 days and was released after Meng’s extradition case was dropped.

He said in a written statement on Monday that the death penalty is not only unjust and unnecessary, it’s a “cruel and highly problematic form of punishment.”

Kovrig said the Canadian government deserves credit for its “persistent advocacy,” which may have encouraged the “positive” development in Schellenberg’s case.

But Kovrig said Schellenberg isn’t out of danger and Canada should keep advocating for his early release.

“Regardless of the charges against him and their veracity or not, nobody deserves the level of suffering that one experiences over long periods of time in a Chinese prison,” said Kovrig.

“So, if someone’s concern is to make sure that Mr. Schellenberg – if he in fact did what he was accused of – is adequately punished, I can attest from seeing the inside of that system and having interviewed many people who’ve been through that system, he has suffered a great deal,” Kovrig said.

China executed four Canadians last year.

Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly said in March that all four were “dual citizens” and were “facing charges linked to criminal activities according to China, linked to drugs.”

China’s embassy in Ottawa later confirmed that Beijing executed Canadian citizens last year, and the embassy told The Associated Press that China does not recognize dual citizenship.

Global Affairs Canada confirmed in a media statement that Canada has repeatedly called for clemency for those people.

Aubrey Harris, Amnesty Canada’s co-ordinator for the campaign to abolish the death penalty, said seeing the case being overturned by the Supreme People’s Court has brought him some temporary relief, but he continues to feel worried about the conditions that Schellenberg has faced.

“And just to be clear that all people facing execution in China should not be facing execution. Our position is that we oppose the death penalty in all cases, regardless of the characteristics, the offender, the nature of the crime, etc., as a fundamental human rights issue,” said Harris in an interview.

It’s not clear how many Canadians have been detained in prison in China, he said.

“China is not the only country that makes the death penalty secretive, but it is a particularly broad blanket that China applies to the death penalty’s information,” said Harris.

Kovrig said he hopes the Canadian government will advocate for better conditions for the roughly 100 Canadian citizens who are still held in detention or in prison in China.

He said if Schellenberg can’t be released from the prison then the Canadian government needs to ensure that his conditions are as good as they can, that he can have something to read and can buy more nutritious food.

“That’s realistically where a country with the scale and influence of Canada can try to make a difference. Pick specific cases and say, ’Hey, how you treat this guy matters to us so, and if you can improve conditions or release this person early, or at least maybe release them from jail to house arrest, that would benefit the relationship and encourage Canada to be more helpful with things you want.”

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