Canada reaches settlement with Michael Spavor, 1 of ‘Two Michaels’ in China spy row
- Michael Spavor reached settlement, reportedly about C$7 million, after nearly three-year detention in China
- Spavor and Michael Korvrig were detained in 2018 following Canada’s arrest of Huawei’s Meng Wanzhou
Ottawa on Wednesday reached a settlement with a Canadian who was jailed in China for nearly three years and claimed he had been unwittingly used for intelligence gathering.
Canadians Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig were detained by Beijing in December 2018 in apparent retaliation for the arrest in Vancouver of Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, on a US warrant.
After all three of them were freed in September 2021 Spavor blamed Kovrig for his detention.
Spavor, a businessman with connections to high-ranking members of the North Korean government, said he was arrested by China because he passed along information to Kovrig – who then passed that information on to the Canadian government, unbeknown to Spavor.
Canadian foreign ministry spokeswoman Charlotte MacLeod said Wednesday that the government “is committed to supporting (the two Michaels) in their efforts to turn to a new chapter in their lives based on their individual circumstances and impacts, and in acknowledgement of their ordeal and the suffering caused by their arbitrary detention by China.”
