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Aug 6, 2020 7:40 PM -

Canada 'profoundly concerned' over Chinese death sentence for citizen in drug case

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A security officer wearing a face mask to help protect against the coronavirus gestures outside the Canadian Embassy in Beijing, Thursday, Aug. 6, 2020. China has sentenced a Canadian citizen to death on charges of manufacturing the drug ketamine amid heightened tension between the two countries. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

Global Affairs Canada says the federal government is ``profoundly concerned'' about a Canadian citizen sentenced to death in China.

The Guangzhou Municipal Intermediate Court announced Xu Weihong'spenalty today and said an alleged accomplice, Wen Guanxiong, had been given a life sentence.

The brief court statement gave no details but local media said Xu and Wen had gathered ingredients and tools and began making the drug ketamine in October 2016, then stored the final product in Xu's home in Guangzhou's Haizhu district.

Police later confiscated more than 120 kilograms of the drug from Xu's home and another address, the reports said.

A Commons committee is meeting this afternoon to examine relations with China, which have deteriorated since Canada's arrest of tech executive Meng Wanzhou in 2018 on a U-S extradition warrant.

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