a court in Shanghai handed down a suspended death sentence

a court in Shanghai handed down a suspended death sentence to a 31-year-old unemployed Japanese man for attempted drug smuggling, the Japanese Consulate General in Shanghai said. The man, surnamed Furusawa, from Tokyo was sentenced by the Shanghai No 1 People's Intermediate Court for trying to board a plane bound for Japan at Shanghai airport with 1.56 kg of a stimulant drug. 
Furusawa's death sentence was suspended for two years, during which time if he did not commit any serious offences while in custody his sentence would be commuted to life imprisonment.
Furusawa, who had been held by the authorities since November 2003, appealed the ruling.
A Japanese consulate official said that the Japanese government did not have any right to intervene in the case.