Three including a Japanese sentenced to death in China for drug trafficking

BEIJING: Six persons including one Japanese and two Koreans were awarded sentences ranging from life imprisonment to capital punishment for drug trafficking in China.

Three persons including a Japanese were awarded death sentence by the intermediate people's court of Nantong City in the eastern Jiangsu province while three others, among them two Korean, were sentenced to life, state-run Xinhua news agency reported today.

The Japanese national along with one from Hong Kong and a mainland Chinese were sentenced to death for trafficking up to 120 kg of crystal methamphetamine, it said.

The court found that the man from Hong Kong escorted the Japanese buyer and three others - two from the Republic of Korea and one from Taiwan, who are still on the run to buy the contraband from two sellers in south China's Guangdong province between February 2012 and March 2013.

Some of the drug was transported to Nantong and also Rizhao in Shandong province and the two Koreans were responsible for smuggling the drugs to Japan by cargo ship, the judgement said.

The other drug seller in Guangdong was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve.

The two Koreans were sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve and life in prison respectively.

The court also ordered the confiscation of their personal property. Three of the six have appealed their verdicts, the report said.