SEOUL: China has executed a South Korean national for smuggling and trading drugs, South Korea foreign ministry said, following Beijing’s execution of three South Korean drug dealers five months earlier.
Despite Seoul’s repeated pleas for clemency, the Chinese authorities executed the South Korean national, identified only by his surname Kim, who was sentenced to death for drug smuggling and transportation in China, the ministry said.
Kim was arrested in China in May 2010 on charges of smuggling some 5 kilograms of drugs into the country and trafficking them.
A Chinese district court sentenced him to death in April 2012 and an appellate court upheld the ruling eight months later. China’s highest court also confirmed the sentence.
Kim is the fourth South Korean that China has executed for drug offenses this year. In early August, three South Korean nationals were executed in China for smuggling and trading drugs.
In 2001, China executed a South Korean drug dealer, identified only by his surname Shin.
Smuggling, producing or trafficking more than one kilogram of opium or 50 grams of heroin or methamphetamine is subject to capital punishment in China.
A foreign ministry official said the Chinese government on Dec. 16 notified South Korea of its decision to execute Kim.
Seoul had repeatedly asked for a stay of execution on humanitarian grounds, but Beijing rejected the plea, the official said.
He said the government will come up with measures to prevent South Koreans from committing drug offenses in China, which are mainly committed in the country’s three northeastern provinces, including limits on drug offenders’ overseas travel.
