A former Chinese entrepreneur who is described as his country’s most wanted fugitive over a massive smuggling and corruption scandal wants to go home after nearly 10 years in Canada, Chinese media said.
Lai Changxing (賴昌星), who fled with his family in 1999 after China accused him of masterminding a US$6 billion smuggling ring, told the China Business View the past decade had been very “tough” both financially and psychologically.
“I missed my hometown very much and I hope to go back to my motherland one day,” the 50-year-old said in Vancouver in an interview published by the newspaper on Thursday.
In the 1990s, Lai headed the Yuanhua Group, which allegedly smuggled cars, crude oil and cigarettes across the border, while bribing officials to look the other way — a scandal that shook southeast China’s booming Fujian Province.
The case felled several high-ranking officials, including former vice minister of police Li Jizhou (李紀周), who was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve.
Ten years on, Lai accepted China’s tax evasion charges against him and said he was ready to pay fines and face punishment in jail, the paper reported.
Lai’s former wife Tsang Mingna (曾明娜) has voluntarily returned to Fujian with their daughter, Canada’s Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said, according to the report.
However, Lai’s lawyer David Matas denied that Lai would follow in his ex-wife’s footsteps and return to China of his own free will, the state-run China New Service reported.
Canada does not normally grant refugee status to wanted criminals but deports them to countries seeking to prosecute them. However, China’s use of the death penalty and reputed abuse of prisoners has made Canadian courts reject Lai’s deportation.
Canadian officials refused Lai and Tsang refugee status on grounds they were mere “common criminals,” but attempts to extradite them and their three children have been repeatedly blocked by Canadian courts.
The case has been a diplomatic thorn between Canada and China and a focus of attention for international human rights groups.
China gave Canada a rare diplomatic assurance it would not execute Lai if he was found guilty, but a Canadian judge ruled in 2007 that risk assessments in the case failed to address the possibility that Lai might be tortured in China.
DEADLOCK: Putin has vowed to continue fighting unless Ukraine cedes more land, while talks have been paused with no immediate results expected, the Kremlin said Russia on Friday said that peace talks with Kyiv were on “pause” as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin still wanted to capture the whole of Ukraine. Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump said that he was running out of patience with Putin, and the NATO alliance said it would bolster its eastern front after Russian drones were shot down in Polish airspace this week. The latest blow to faltering diplomacy came as Russia’s army staged major military drills with its key ally Belarus. Despite Trump forcing the warring sides to hold direct talks and hosting Putin in Alaska, there
North Korea has executed people for watching or distributing foreign television shows, including popular South Korean dramas, as part of an intensifying crackdown on personal freedoms, a UN human rights report said on Friday. Surveillance has grown more pervasive since 2014 with the help of new technologies, while punishments have become harsher — including the introduction of the death penalty for offences such as sharing foreign TV dramas, the report said. The curbs make North Korea the most restrictive country in the world, said the 14-page UN report, which was based on interviews with more than 300 witnesses and victims who had
COMFORT WOMEN CLASH: Japan has strongly rejected South Korean court rulings ordering the government to provide reparations to Korean victims of sexual slavery The Japanese government yesterday defended its stance on wartime sexual slavery and described South Korean court rulings ordering Japanese compensation as violations of international law, after UN investigators criticized Tokyo for failing to ensure truth-finding and reparations for the victims. In its own response to UN human rights rapporteurs, South Korea called on Japan to “squarely face up to our painful history” and cited how Tokyo’s refusal to comply with court orders have denied the victims payment. The statements underscored how the two Asian US allies still hold key differences on the issue, even as they pause their on-and-off disputes over historical
CONSOLIDATION: The Indonesian president has used the moment to replace figures from former president Jokowi’s tenure with loyal allies In removing Indonesia’s finance minister and U-turning on protester demands, the leader of Southeast Asia’s biggest economy is scrambling to restore public trust while seizing a chance to install loyalists after deadly riots last month, experts say. Demonstrations that were sparked by low wages, unemployment and anger over lawmakers’ lavish perks grew after footage spread of a paramilitary police vehicle running over a delivery motorcycle driver. The ensuing riots, which rights groups say left at least 10 dead and hundreds detained, were the biggest of Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto’s term, and the ex-general is now calling on the public to restore their
RSS