U.S. says China’s death sentence against Canadian ‘politically motivated’

TORONTO — The U.S. State Department says China’s death sentence against a Canadian man is “politically motivated.”

Wednesday’s statement from U.S. deputy spokesman Robert Palladino says that U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland spoke Tuesday and “expressed their concerns about the arbitrary detentions and politically motivated sentencing of Canadian nationals.”

A Chinese court resentenced Robert Schellenberg to death in a sudden retrial of a drug-smuggling case on Monday.

Freeland and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau have been talking to world leaders about Schellenberg’s case and the cases of two Canadians arrested in China in apparent retaliation for the arrest of Chinese Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou.

Canada arrested the daughter of Huawei’s founder at the request of the U.S., which wants her extradited to face fraud charges.

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The Associated Press