China denies suspension of death sentence for US citizen detained on drug charges

14 Apr. (EUROPE PRESS) –

A Chinese court has denied this Friday the appeal of US citizen Mark Swidan and has confirmed his death sentence, as reported by the US State Department.

The Department’s deputy spokesman, Vedant Patel, has indicated that the Biden Administration is “disappointed by this decision and will continue to press for his immediate release and return to the United States.”

Patel has remarked that several “US officials have repeatedly expressed to senior officials in China their concerns about Swidan’s treatment and medical care,” as well as his “inability to send or receive mail on time.”

He has also ensured that US President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken “remain personally focused on the release of Mark Swidan and other US citizens unjustly detained or held hostage around the world.”

The Chinese authorities arrested Swidan in 2012 on drug-related charges, for which he has been detained for more than a decade, suffering physical and psychological torture, according to his mother, Katherine Swidan, in statements to the television network.

“I refuse to accept that the most powerful country on Earth cannot bring Mark home,” Swidan declared at the beginning of the year, on the occasion of Blinken’s trip to Beijing, which was finally suspended due to the tensions generated by the detection of alleged Chinese spy balloons over US territory.

A group of UN experts determined that his detention is arbitrary and called for his immediate release, after the Chinese Justice determined his death sentence in 2019.