OTTAWA: A Sino-Canadian row reared its head on Monday (Nov 20) after one in all two Canadians jailed by China for almost three years claimed he was unwittingly used for intelligence gathering and is in search of compensation from Ottawa.
Beijing’s 2018 to 2021 detentions of Canadians Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig had plunged bilateral relations right into a deep freeze.
Spavor reportedly now blames Kovrig, with whom he had offered info on North Korea, unaware that it could be shared with Canada and its intelligence companions, for his or her incarceration.
And, he’s in search of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in compensation from Ottawa, in response to the Globe and Mail newspaper.
“The allegations are unfounded,” Kovrig advised AFP.
Spavor’s lawyer declined to remark whereas Canada’s overseas ministry referred to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s 2021 remarks additionally calling the espionage expenses “unfounded”.
China’s embassy in Ottawa, nevertheless, stated in an announcement that Spavor’s declare “totally exposes Canada’s hypocrisy”.
“Canada’s hyping up of so-called ‘arbitrary detention’ by China is only a thief crying ‘cease thief’,” it stated.
On the time of their detention, Ottawa rejected the spying expenses levelled in opposition to the 2 Michaels, accusing Beijing of getting arbitrarily detained them in retaliation for its arrest on a US warrant of Meng Wanzhou, a Huawei senior government and the daughter of its founder, in December 2018.
All three have been launched in September 2021.
On Monday, Ottawa maintained each males’s innocence, saying in an announcement: “Perpetuating the notion that both Michael was concerned in espionage is barely perpetuating a false narrative underneath which they have been detained by China.”
