Canada's Michael Spavor, one of the two Michaels that has been detained by China since 2018, was convicted on counts of espionage on Wednesday night.
Spavor's detention, along with that of Michael Kovrig, had been widely accepted as a retaliation by the Chinese government for the arrest of Meng Wanzhou, the Huawei CFO, in what's been described as "hostage diplomacy."
A statement by the Chinese state court said that Spavor would serve 11 years for crimes of "spying and illegal provision of state secrets abroad [Spavor] has been sentenced to 11 years in jail, confiscation of 50,000 yuan ($7715) worth of personal property and deportation."
Spavor will likely not be deported from China until he serves his 11-year sentence.
According to AFP, the Canadian ambassador to China, Dominic Barton, condemned the conviction. The decision comes on the heels of the announcement that China declined the appeal of Robert Schellenberg, a Canadian who had been sentenced to death on a retrial. Schellenberg had initially only been sentenced to 15 years, but lost a retrial after the arrest of Wanzhou.
No verdict for Kovrig has been announced.
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