Canadian Tried in China on Spy Charges, No Verdict Announced

DANDONG, China—The Chinese regime on Friday put on trial one of two Canadians held for more than two years in apparent retaliation for Canada’s arrest of a senior Chinese telecom executive.

Canada said its consular officials were refused permission to attend the proceedings against Michael Spavor, who is accused by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) of stealing state secrets.

Jim Nickel, the Canadian Embassy’s deputy chief of mission, said the hearing ended at noon Friday after two hours. No verdict has been announced.

Nickel declined to give other details, citing rules on protecting Spavor’s privacy.

NTD Photo
A police officer controls the traffic at an entrance of the Intermediate People’s Court where Michael Spavor, a Canadian detained by China in December 2018 on suspicion of espionage, is expected to stand trial, in Dandong, Liaoning province, China, on March 19, 2021. (Carlos Garcia Rawlins/Reuters)

In a statement posted on its website, the Intermediate People’s Court of Dandong in the northeastern province of Liaoning Province said it had held a closed-door hearing against Spavor on charges of spying and illegally sending state secrets abroad. It said Spavor and his defense lawyers were present for the proceedings and the court would pronounce a sentence at a date “determined in accordance with law.”

Fellow Canadian Michael Kovrig is due to go before a court on Monday. The two were detained in December 2018, days after Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou was arrested at the request of the U.S. at the airport in Vancouver, British Columbia. Both are charged with spying.

NTD Photo
(L) Michael Spavor, director of Paektu Cultural Exchange, talks during a Skype interview in Yanji, China on March 2, 2017. (R) Michael Kovrig, an adviser with the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based non-governmental organization, speaks during an interview in Hong Kong on March 28, 2018. (AP photo)

The entrance to the courthouse was roped off with police tape and journalists were kept outside, although not detained or told to leave, as often occurs during sensitive legal cases. Police cars and vans with lights flashing passed through the gate to the court complex, located beside the Yalu River that divides China from North Korea.

Earlier, Nickel had knocked on a court door seeking entry but was refused. Another 10 diplomats from eight countries, including the United States, the U.K. and Australia, stood on the street opposite the courthouse in a show of support.

NTD Photo
Foreign diplomats gather near a court building in Dandong in northeastern China’s Liaoning Province, on March 19, 2021. China was expected to open the first trial Friday for Michael Spavor, one of two Canadians who have been held for more than two years in apparent retaliation for Canada’s arrest of a senior Chinese telecom executive. (Ken Moritsugu/AP Photo)

International and bilateral treaties required that China provide Canadian diplomats access to the trial, but the court said Chinese law regarding trials on state security charges overrode such obligations, Nickel said.

Spavor and Kovrig were detained in December 2018, days after Meng was arrested at the request of the United States at the airport in Vancouver, British Columbia. The U.S. is seeking her extradition to face fraud charges related to the telecom giant’s dealings with Iran, which is under American financial sanctions.

Meng Wanzhou
Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou, who is out on bail and remains under partial house arrest after she was detained last year at the behest of American authorities, leaves B.C. Supreme Court following a case management hearing, in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, on Jan. 17, 2020. (Jonathan Hayward/The Canadian Press via AP)

The two Canadians have been held ever since, while Meng has been released on bail. They were charged in June 2020 with spying under the CCP’s broadly defined national security laws.

Spavor, an entrepreneur with North Korea-related business, was charged with spying for a foreign entity and illegally procuring state secrets. Kovrig, an analyst and former diplomat, was charged with illegally receiving state secrets and intelligence in collaboration with Spavor.

Prosecutors have not released details of the charges and national security cases are routinely held behind closed doors. The state-owned Global Times newspaper said Kovrig was accused of having used an ordinary passport and business visa to enter China to steal sensitive information and intelligence through contacts in China since 2017, while Spavor was accused of being a key source of intelligence for Kovrig.

Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig,
Louis Huang of Vancouver Freedom and Democracy for China holds photos of Canadians Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig, who are being detained by China, outside British Columbia Supreme Court, in Vancouver, on March 6, 2019, as Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou appears in court. (Jason Redmond/AFP via Getty Images)

In Vancouver on Thursday, Meng’s lawyers told an extradition hearing Canadian officials abused their power when they conspired with the United States to arrest her. Defense lawyer Tony Paisana said Canadian Border Services Agency officers took Meng’s phones, obtained their passwords, then handed to them to Canadian police so the data could be shared with the FBI.

Paisana said Meng was never told during questioning that she faced an arrest warrant in the United States and would have immediately asked for a lawyer if so informed. British Columbia Supreme Court Associate Chief Justice Heather Holmes suggested border officers would have questioned Meng more rigorously if their exam was actually a covert criminal investigation, as her lawyers said.

The Chinese regime has demanded Meng’s immediate and unconditional release, saying the United States engineered her detention. Canadian authorities say Kovrig and Spavor were arbitrarily arrested to put pressure on Ottawa and say they should be released without charge.

The Chinese regime has also restricted various Canadian exports, including canola oil seed, and handed death sentences to another four Canadians convicted of drug smuggling.

Outside the courthouse, Nickel said Canada still held hope that Spavor and Kovrig could be released through joint efforts with the United States, whose Secretary of State Antony Blinken and national security adviser Jake Sullivan are currently holding their first face-to-face talks with China’s top diplomats in Anchorage, Alaska.

“So we’re hopeful that, in some measure, this trial may too lead to their immediate release,” Nickel said.

The China-U.S. dialogue got off to a rocky start Thursday, with the United States accusing the Chinese delegation of “grandstanding” and top Chinese foreign policy adviser Yang Jiechi accusing the American side of hypocrisy and taking a patronizing attitude.

In Canada, Spavor’s family issued a statement saying he had been granted “very limited access and interaction with his retained Chinese defense counsel,” according to Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail.

“At this time, we feel it is necessary to speak out and call for his unconditional release. His continued unjust detention depriving him of his liberty is both unfair and unreasonable, especially given the lack of transparency in the case,” the newspaper quoted the statement as saying.

By Ken Moritsugu

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