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.

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.”

Joly said former prime minister Justin Trudeau also urged China not to execute the Canadians.

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.

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