an appellate court in Shanghai, China, rejected an appeal made by Tadahiro Furusawa

an appellate court in Shanghai, China, rejected an appeal made by Tadahiro Furusawa, a Japanese man who had been given a suspended death sentence in December 2005 for attempted drug smuggling. On 3 December Furusawa, 31, a Tokyo resident, 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 has been held by the authorities since November 2003, had appealed the ruling to the Shanghai Higher People's Court, which upheld it, leaving him no further chance to appeal.
According to the earlier verdict of the People's Intermediate Court, Furusawa had received from another person a DVD player in which the stimulant drug was hidden. It said that in November 2003, at Shanghai's Pudong International Airport, the Japanese man tried to smuggle it aboard a flight bound for Fukuoka in his hand-carried luggage, but it was detected by security.