Canadian prisoner in China has been re-educated, sentence cut: party official
OTTAWA — A Canadian imprisoned in China for more than a decade had his life sentenced reduced because he took part in a re-education program, a top Chinese Communist party official said Tuesday.
Huseyin Celil, of southern Ontario, received a life sentence in 2007 for terrorism-related charges after a widely criticized trial that has strained Sino-Canadian relations over the course of two Conservative and Liberal governments.
Celil was an advocate for China’s persecuted Uighur community who fled to Canada in 2000 and later became a citizen.
He was arrested in Uzbekistan in 2006 on a trip to visit his wife’s relatives and was sent to China, where he was convicted and sentenced a year later.