Russian citizen sentenced to death in China

The Russian Embassy's source in Beijing confirmed to RIA Novosti that a Russian citizen had been sentenced to death in China. Along with it, the source said, the court delivered the sentence with a two-year delay of execution.

The source said that a 24-year-old resident of the Maritime territory is charged with drug smuggling and is now kept in a prison in Yunnan, a province in the south of China.

It was specified that the Russian woman was arrested in the city of Kunming in September 2000, while trying to bring more than a kilo of heroin to China. She was sentenced to death with a two-year delay of the execution. The decision of the court came into force in March 2002 after the Court of Higher Instance had approved it.

An informed source in the law-enforcement bodies of Vladivostok told RIA Novosti that the relevant documents concerning the case of the Maritime territory resident have been recently obtained by the law-enforcement bodies of the Far East Federal District.

The Russian diplomatic mission has repeatedly requested the Chinese instances to mitigate the sentence. The staff members of the consular department several times visited the Yunnan province where they met with the Russian citizen and inspected the conditions of her custody in the Chinese prison.

Under the Chinese laws, a criminal who brings 50 or more grams of heroin to China can be sentenced to life imprisonment or death considering aggravating circumstances. Earlier in China, a South Korean was executed by shooting as a huge amount of smuggled heroine was confiscated from him.