Beijing – The trial against Michael Kovrig, the Canadian detained for more than two years in China on espionage charges, began on Monday, with relations between Ottawa and Beijing in freefall. The hearing comes days after the closed-door trial of another Canadian, with both detained in apparent retaliation for Canada’s arrest on a US extradition order. Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou.
Kovrig, a former diplomat, was arrested in 2018 and formally charged last June with espionage at the same time as his compatriot, businessman Michael Spavor.
On Monday, police cordoned off an area outside the Beijing courthouse as Canadian diplomats were denied entry and withdrew. A judicial official told reporters that entry was not allowed because the trial is a national security case.
Jim Nickel, the head of business at the Canadian embassy in Beijing, told reporters he was “very concerned about the lack of access and lack of transparency in the legal process.”
Representatives from 26 countries had gathered outside the building on Monday, Nickel said, and were “giving voice” to Kovrig’s immediate release.
The United States is “deeply concerned about the lack of minimum procedural protections granted to the two Canadian citizens,” William Klein, acting deputy head of mission at the U.S. embassy in Beijing, told the media outside the court.
REUTERS
Canadian diplomats were also barred from attending the Spavor trial in the northern city of Dandong on Friday, which lasted less than three hours and ended without a verdict being announced.
After that closed-door hearing, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called the arrest of the two men “completely unacceptable, as well as the lack of transparency surrounding these court proceedings.”
China’s Foreign Ministry on Monday defended that diplomats could not enter the court and criticized those meeting abroad as “very unreasonable.”
“Whether it’s a few or dozens of diplomats trying to gather and put pressure, it’s an interference in China’s judicial sovereignty … and not something a diplomat has to do,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman said. Exteriors, Hua Chunying.
US bid to prosecute Huawei executive
The two Canadians’ court dates are coming as Meng’s extradition hearing enters its final months and next fiery high-level talks between the US and China in Alaska.
Meng, whose father is Huawei’s founder and CEO Ren Zhengfei, has been fighting extradition to the United States on charges that she and the company violated U.S. sanctions on Iran and other laws.
A year ago, the U.S. Department of Justice unveiled charges, specifically called Meng, accusing Huawei of orchestrating a successful “decades” scheme to steal trade secrets from U.S. tech companies.
Although Kovrig’s trial was still ongoing on Monday afternoon, Canada’s former ambassador to China, Guy Saint-Jacques, told AFP he hoped the proceedings would be short.
“China is not even trying to make this look like a real trial, as the evidence is not shared with the defense and the judge does not even take the time to review it,” he said before the hearing. “It simply confirms that the process is organized by the Communist Party and it is a political case.”
China’s judicial system convicts most people who go to trial and the two men face life in prison if found guilty of espionage and “providing state secrets.”
They have had almost no contact with the outside world since their arrest and virtual consular visits only resumed in October after a nine-month hiatus that authorities said was due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Beijing has insisted that the arrest of the two Canadians is legal, although it has described Meng’s case as “a purely political incident”.
“The message in the U.S. is: if you want to help Canadians, make sure Meng is returned to China quickly,” Saint-Jacques said.