CHINA: ANOTHER SOUTH KOREAN EXECUTED FOR DRUG TRAFFICKING

another South Korean, identified by his surname Chang, was executed by lethal injection in Qingdao, Shandong Province on drugs charges. Chinese judicial authorities notified South Korea of his execution.
His death follows the execution a day earlier of two other South Koreans on similar charges.
Chang (55) was arrested in 2009 for smuggling 11.5 kg of methamphetamines from North Korea to China, where he sold them.
He was sentenced to death by a court in Qingdao in May 2012 and appealed to a high court in Shandong Province. But his sentence was upheld by the high court in June 2013 and later in December by the Supreme People's Court. Beijing informed Seoul of the Chinese court's decision to execute him in May 2014, some five months after the decision was made.
Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se and Ambassador to China Kwon Young-se asked Beijing to grant Chang a stay of execution for humanitarian reasons. But the Shandong high court wrote to the Consulate General in Qingdao on 1 August saying that Chang would be executed. Chang is the fifth South Korean to be executed in China since the two countries established diplomatic relations in 1992.