One of the two Canadians at the center of a major diplomatic spat between Ottawa and Beijing is now “seeking a multimillion-dollar settlement” from the Canadian government.
Michael Spavor, who was jailed in China for nearly 3 years, claimed he was deceived by fellow Canadian Michael Kovrig into sharing intelligence on North Korea which the latter passed on to Ottawa, the Globe and Mail reported.
The paper said that “confidential negotiations” are taking place between Spavor’s lawyers and representatives of the department of justice and Global Affairs Canada – the department in charge of foreign affairs, trade and development.
Spavor’s legal team alleged that he was arrested by China because of information that he shared with Kovrig. The information was later passed on, unbeknown to Spavor, to the Canadian government and its partners from the Five Eyes, an intelligence alliance compromising Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Spavor, a businessman with connections in North Korea, and former diplomat Kovrig, were arrested in December 2018 and tried for espionage in 2019.
Their arrests and trials were condemned as ‘arbitrary’ by the Canadian government which denied categorically that they were spies. Ottawa said the two men were incarcerated on trumped-up charges in retaliation for the arrest of Chinese businesswoman Meng Wanzhou by Canada on a U.S. extradition warrant.
Meng is chief financial officer at Chinese technology conglomerate Huawei. She was indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice on fraud charges and detained in Vancouver on Dec. 1, 2018 at the request of the U.S.
The case involving Meng Wanzhou and the two Michaels led to one of the biggest diplomatic crises between Canada and China, with both countries accusing each other of ‘hostage diplomacy.’
All three were released in September 2021 after deals were reached between the governments of China, the U.S. and Canada. China had denied that the cases were linked.
‘Canada should apologize’
Spavor ran a tour business in a border city between China and North Korea and had a large network of contacts in the secretive state.
He was sentenced by a Chinese court in August 2021 to 11 years in prison for spying.
Kovrig worked as a diplomat assigned to the Global Security Reporting Program (GSRP) at the Canadian embassy in Beijing from 2012 to 2014. He was with the International Crisis Group, an international think tank, at the time of his arrest.
On Spavor’s latest claim that he was used by Kovrig to obtain intelligence, the Chinese embassy in Canada said: “This fully exposes the hypocrisy of the Canadian side.”
"Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor are suspected of engaging in activities endangering China's national security," an embassy spokesperson said. "The recent reports of Canadian media have once again proven that these facts cannot be denied."
“We urge the Canadian side to face the facts and deeply reflect upon its mistakes instead of continuing to attack and smear China, and misleading and deceiving the Canadian public,” the spokesperson added.
China's mouthpiece Global Times, meanwhile, said that Spavor's statements "confirm [the] Chinese side's charge" and the case is "more than simply an embarrassment to the Canadian government."
“Canada should offer a sincere apology to China, which it has wronged, as well as extend a sincere apology to [the] Canadian public and the international community that it has deceived,” it said.
Ottawa has not commented on the compensation negotiation but Canadian media quoted several officials who insisted that Kovrig was “not a spy.”
"My reaction: This is ridiculous," Kerry Buck, former Canada's ambassador to NATO who also served as assistant deputy minister for international security, wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.
“GSRP diplomats write diplomatic reports,” said Buck, referring to Kovrig’s job at the Canadian embassy in Beijing. “In no world does this make GSRP diplomats ‘spies’.”
Edited by Taejun Kang and Mike Firn.