Actor Karm Gilespie sentenced to death in China for drug smuggling

Lawyers believe there is more at play over the death sentence given to Blue Heelers actor-turned serial entrepreneur Karm Gilespie, seven years after his arrest in China.

Chinese lawyers believe the death sentence given to Australian actor-turned serial entrepreneur Karm Gilespie seven years after he was arrested on drug trafficking charges is linked to the parlous state of the bilateral relationship.

Mr Gilespie, 55 — a stage actor who once had a recurring role on Australian police show Blue Heelers — was arrested with 7.5 kilograms of the drug ice in his luggage at Guangzhou Baiyun Airport in December 2013, according to reports by Chinese media published on Saturday.

That was three months after Tony Abbott was elected prime minister and his government was negotiating a free-trade agreement with China.

“China has been prudent in giving sentences to foreigners out of consideration of diplomatic relations with other countries,” one lawyer in China told The Australian, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the political sensitivity of the subject.

The lawyer said the sudden announcement, seven years after the charge, indicated Mr Gilespie’s case was “tangled” in the “diplomatic disturbance” between the two countries.

“It is not a coincidence,” said the lawyer.

Karm Gilespie.

Friends of Mr Gilespie have told the Sunday Telegraph they are shocked at his detention, and believed he had been “set up.”

“He was performing his own one-man show of Banjo Paterson poems back when I knew him,” friend Tahnee Woolf told News Corp.

“I feel terrible to hear that he has been in a prison for the last seven years. I cannot imagine what his family is going through.”

As well as stage and TV roles, Mr Gilespie also spoke on the wealth motivational circuit, according to several online profiles. Entreprenuer Roger James Hamilton told Nine Newspapers he had been working with Mr Gilespie, describing his sudden disappearance seven years ago “strange”.

“We spent a few years trying to find out how he could disappear so suddenly and so entirely. After that, we resigned ourselves to the idea that he had left because he wanted to start a new life,” Mr Hamilton was quoted as saying.

Australia’s bilateral relationship with China — already tense at the start of the year — has become even more strained after the Morrison government called for an independent inquiry into the origins of COVID-19, which was first detected spreading in the Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019.

China’s state controlled media has openly linked recent bans on Australian beef imports and a new 80 per cent tariff on Australian barley to the Morrison government’s push for an inquiry.

Last week, China’s government released statements warning its citizens from travelling to or studying in Australia because of “racist incidents”.

The Australian understands that at the end of 2019 62 Australians were under arrest in China, most on charges of drug trafficking or fraud.

Most of the cases have never been publicised, with the writer Dr. Yang Hengjun — who remains under arrest after being detained in January 2019 – a rare exception.

Less than ten of these involve cases that could end with execution.

Until China’s state media on Saturday published the one sentence statement on the death sentence by the Guangzhou Intermediate People’s Court, the seven year long detention of Mr Gilespie – who was born in rural Victoria – had never been made public.

The Chinese Communist Party’s top legal body, the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission, which oversees the country’s highly politicised legal system, also published the one sentence statement on its website on Saturday.

The Political and Legal Affairs Commission is run by Guo Shengkun, a member of the Communist Party’s politburo, its 25 most senior figures.

Mr Shengkun – who was previously the Minister of Public Security – reports directly to General Secretary Xi.

Another lawyer in China familiar with similar cases to Mr Gilespie’s told The Australian the timing of the announcement was unusual.

“What surprised me is that he was arrested seven years ago and didn’t (go to) trial until now,” said the lawyer.

The Chinese government’s anger with the Canadian government over the arrest of Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of Chinese telecom giant Huawei, on a U.S. extradition warrant in December 2018, was believed to have influenced the sentencing of a Canadian arrested for drug smuggling.

A court in the northeastern Chinese province of Liaoning had sentenced Canadian Robert Schellenberg to 15 years in November 2018, weeks before Ms Meng’s arrest.

That sentence - for Mr Schellenberg’s role in smuggling more than 200 kilograms of methamphetamine - was then elevated to the death sentence at a hastily-scheduled January retrial.