Lai Changxing, China Fugitive Smuggler, Sentenced To Life Term

This TV grab taken on July 23, 2011 from China's Central Television shows fugitive Chinese businessman Lai Changxing escorted by Chinese authorities after he landed in the Chinese capital aboard a civilian flight in the custody of Canadian police, in Beijing. (STR/AFP/Getty Images)

BEIJING — The Canadian government says it is pleased that a high-profile Chinese smuggler who had been extradited from Canada has received a life sentence, and not the death penalty.

Foreign Affairs and International Trade spokeswoman Patricia Low-Bedard says China lived up to its assurance that Lai Changxing would not receive the death penalty upon conviction.

Lai, once considered China's most-wanted fugitive, was sentenced to life in prison Friday for smuggling and bribery in a lurid corruption case that involved a decade-long extradition fight.

After Lai fled to Canada, Beijing assured Canadian authorities that he would not be executed if returned to China – a key Canadian demand.

Earlier on HuffPost:

Comments

[michaelat33685]

01:46 PM on 05/19/2012

Where did that stray bullet come from?

[Rangergirl]

01:45 PM on 05/19/2012

I am pretty sure his life sentence will be short. They will figure away

[Stavo]

12:26 AM on 05/19/2012

Goes to prove.....what a bunch of back biters those lousy Canucks are....ehh?? That guy was only practicing US republican capitalism....with a chinese twist and the other thieves in China couldn't have that. So...if you are a chinese national, living in the canadian providences....beware....someone may be plotting to take everything you have and send you back to China as a criminal. Once that road is opened.....beware.

[Marco Lanz]

03:57 AM on 05/19/2012

The story has absolutely nothing to do with the US.

[Whistlejackett]

09:51 PM on 05/18/2012

He will live like a cockroach in a darkened damp and unusually small cell with a real horny chick groaning behind a wall.

[Aarky]

08:49 PM on 05/18/2012

The Chinese should have reneged on their promise not to execute that little weasel. The Chinese still have the right attitude about what to do with people in high places who are very corrupt.

[V-Bottom]

08:32 PM on 05/18/2012

what a guy........trying to fork the govt.....love him!!

[Wanku Charles Wang]

12:34 PM on 05/18/2012

“operation totaled $3.3 billion, evaded $1.7 billion in duties and other taxes” so he was SUPPOSED to pay 1.7bill out of 3.3bill he operated, no wonder why he wanted to evade that creepy tax so much.

[Enso]

11:45 AM on 05/18/2012

American politicians are much cheaper.'
In U.S. he would have to contribute only $100,000 to have din-din and a pic with Barak and become a member of a trusted donor circle with access.

[French Toast]

02:36 PM on 05/18/2012

Remember folks, only get upset when it's an arbitrary political team you're not a part of. Seriously, show a backbone and show a set of principles and stop pretending like Barack is the first and only politician to do that.

I know you failed in your life but that doesn't mean you get to sit there and cluck like a hen without the obvious being pointed out.

[JessWonderin]

10:56 PM on 05/18/2012

SMACK!!! .. . gonna be awhile before Enso goes out in public . . . .

[ncconcernedcitizen]

09:12 AM on 05/18/2012

Never bribe the loosing side...

[Jeff Forsythe]

08:45 AM on 05/18/2012

This is a very common practice in Red China. Top officials of the brutal Chinese Communist Party pick out someone to point their fingers at and this gives the public the impression of innocence. The CCP is a gangster regime.
The cruel CCP does not care about anything except its own paranoid survival and is responsible for the deaths of 80 million of its own people since 1949. Since 1999 the CCP has been attempting the genocide of tens of millions of innocent Falun Gong practitioners by the use of torture, slavery, organ harvesting and murder.
The Western World and media has turned its backs on a multitude of human rights violations for the sake of corporate greed. This is my understanding, thank you.

[Enso]

11:43 AM on 05/18/2012

Try a relaxing bath and cuppa decaf.

[pinkibus]

01:39 PM on 05/18/2012

Jeff it sounds like America doesn't it?

[nypapajoe]

08:29 AM on 05/18/2012

China does know how to prosecute and sentence their criminals! This nations sometimes prosecute criminals but if you have money you can appeal and wait at home until its resolved! Polo anyone!

[Protocolor]

08:02 AM on 05/18/2012

In the US he would have gotten a bailout and been appointed to the Board of the Federal Reserve.

[aacme]

09:35 AM on 05/18/2012

Ah, but in the US our system has advanced to the point that the bribe is no longer illegal, but the very means of government decision making. China is making great strides, but one can't expect them to have reached our pinnacle of civilization quite yet.

[Raymond Hietapakka]

07:16 AM on 05/18/2012

The cockroach was fed and watered here for years. I guess you can only make pay-offs to our terribly corrupt oligarchy for so long.

[Tim The Enchanter]

07:13 AM on 05/18/2012

Weird how China believes in 1-way free trade.

[Robert Turner]

06:54 AM on 05/18/2012

So China actually arrests REAL criminals? Amazing.

[layman]

07:06 AM on 05/18/2012

Unlike the US of A.

[Lechiffre]

07:34 AM on 05/18/2012

Precisely !