OTTAWA: Canada will appeal Canadian businessman Michael Spavor’s 11-year jail sentence for spying in China, the country’s top diplomat said Wednesday, citing a lack of evidence in what he called a “sham trial.”
Spavor was sentenced earlier Wednesday in a ruling by a Chinese court which has ignited an international outcry.
The United States and the European Union have condemned the move, and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has slammed it as “absolutely unacceptable and unjust”.
“We plan to launch an appeal,” Canadian Foreign Minister Marc Garneau told a news conference.
He slammed the Chinese proceedings as a “sham trial with absolutely no transparency whatsoever and a verdict that is completely unjustified, or not acceptable in terms of international rules-based law.”
Garneau’s comment echoed a statement by Trudeau earlier Wednesday, who said the verdict came “after more than two-and-a-half years of arbitrary detention, a lack of transparency in the legal process, and a trial that did not satisfy even the minimum standards required by international law.”
Canada’s Tory opposition leader Erin O’Toole also criticized Spavor’s sentence as “completely unacceptable,” accusing Beijing of “using one of our citizens as a diplomatic ploy.”
This week, O’Toole suggested Canada boycott the Winter Olympics in Beijing, saying: “We are approaching a point where it won’t be safe for Canadians, including Olympic athletes, to travel to China.”
Spavor was detained in 2018 along with compatriot Michael Kovrig on what Ottawa has said are politically orchestrated charges after Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou was arrested in Canada on a US extradition warrant.
Relations between the two countries have hit rock bottom, with China also accusing Canada of politicising legal cases.
Garneau said Ottawa continues to work with Washington and other allies to pressure Beijing to release Spavor and Kovrig, but did not offer details, saying only that “those intense discussions continue.”
Kovrig is expected to be sentenced soon, but no date has been announced.
The minister said Ottawa also continues to seek clemency for Robert Schellenberg, whose death sentence for drug smuggling was upheld by a Chinese court this week.
Schellenberg was originally sentenced to 15 years in prison in late 2018, but that was changed to the death penalty just months later amid the meltdown in relations between Ottawa and Beijing after Meng’s detention.
“We will argue, as we have from the beginning for clemency in the case of Robert Schellenberg,” Garneau said.
Meng’s extradition trial is scheduled to wrap up on August 20 but no decision in her case is expected for several months.
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