Front Burner - Accused of espionage, how a Canadian couple survived Chinese detention

Episode Date: March 6, 2019

On Monday, Chinese authorities accused two Canadians who have been detained since December of being spies. This news comes as Canada proceeds with a U.S. extradition request for Huawei's CFO Meng Wanzhou. But this isn't the first time Canadians have been caught in the middle of an escalating diplomatic dispute with China. Kevin and Julia Garratt know what it's like to live in Chinese custody under suspicion of espionage. Today on Front Burner, they describe what happened to them and share what they learned about China's judicial system during their two-year ordeal.

Hey there, I'm David Common. If you're like me, there are things you love about living in the GTA and things that drive you absolutely crazy. Every day on This Is Toronto, we connect you to what matters most about life in the GTA, the news you gotta know, and the conversations your friends will be talking about. Whether you listen on a run through your neighbourhood, or while sitting in the parking lot that is the 401, check out This Is Toronto, wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Leah Simone Bowen.

And I'm Phelan Johnson. And we're the hosts of The Secret Life of Canada, a history podcast about the country you know and the stories you don't. That's right. Season one, we discovered some really eye-opening things like Banff was built by POWs. And that pizza pops are Canadian. And that Canada had 200 years of slavery. Join us for season two on CBC Podcasts as we dive even further into the undertold and untold history of Canada. Hello, I'm Jamie Poisson. Just when you thought relations between China and Canada couldn't get any worse,

Chinese authorities this week accused two Canadians who have been detained since December of being spies and of working together to steal state secrets. That is Liu Kang, the spokesperson for China's foreign ministry. Liu said only that their cases are being handled according to the law. Things are looking pretty bad for Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig, especially as Canada proceeds with a U.S. extradition request for Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou. But this isn't the first time the Canadians have been caught in the middle of an escalating diplomatic spat with China. Kevin and Julia Garrett know exactly what it's like to live in Chinese custody under suspicion of spying. Their lives were turned upside down in 2014.

A Canadian couple who have lived in China for the past three decades is now under investigation for what state media is calling suspected theft of state secrets about China's military and national defense. Today, Kevin and Julia live in New Westminster, British Columbia. They're here now to tell us about life in Chinese detention and what they learned about how China's judicial system actually works. This is FrontBurner. Kevin and Julia, hello. Thank you so much for joining us today. Hi, it's great to be here.

Yeah, nice to be here today. I want to start today with the arrest. Kevin, I'm hoping that you can take us back to that night in August 2014. What happened? Well, it was August 4th, 2014. We had gone to dinner. A friend of a friend invited us to dinner to talk about their daughter studying in Canada. Actually wanted to study at the University of Toronto. And we went to this dinner, kind of a friend invited us to dinner to talk about their daughter studying in Canada. I actually wanted to study at the University of Toronto.

And we went to this dinner, kind of a fancy restaurant, but kind of a normal thing that would happen in China. They want to treat you well, and they want to ask questions because they want to ask a favor. So we went to the dinner, and the daughter wasn't there. And they said, oh, she had a toothache. And then we had dinner. It was a little too fancy for us. But then, you know, kind of suddenly it was like, oh, it's over now. Okay, thank you for coming and all that. They saw us to the elevator of the restaurant because this is a multi-floor restaurant.

Normally, in Chinese culture, they would see you right to the door or even pay for your taxi home or something like that. But they saw us to the elevator and said, oh, we have to pay the bill, which is unusual. So when we came into the restaurant, like the foyer was completely empty except for one clerk. And then when we came down the elevator, Julius said, oh, it looks like a wedding because we noticed a couple of cameras and just a bunch of people. So we thought, oh, we should get out of the way. And it was actually an abduction.

We learned they're quite different. And of course you were the people being abducted. It was carefully planned because each of us had an item in our hands that we had been given by the people that invited us for dinner. So I had been given a pink plastic CD in a case with apparently the daughter's resume on and Kevin had been given a vase. And so we were obviously identified by those items when we came down in the elevator. But we actually ended up being the only people in the elevator. But I think they planned it all very, very carefully just to make sure there was no mistake of who they would be abducting.

And when they take you, what do they say to you? Nobody said anything. And it all happened in just an instant. There were so many people, and then they just came between us, and then immediately grabbed me by the arms and took me out one exit and Kevin out another exit. And they had cars parked there waiting. And then we just immediately put in those cars and driven off into the darkness. And I was still, I didn't see any badges or anything like that. And I said, right when I was in the car, who are you? And I really had every thought going through my mind, whether it was thugs or North Korean. And it wasn't until we arrived at a form of a police

station, which I later realized then, okay, this is China and this is a police station, but I still had no idea why. And I felt like they'd made a mistake. The Chinese government is accusing two Canadians of spying. My dad said he's a little bit worried and unsure what to do. My mom, she said she believes the authorities will have wisdom and find the truth. Peter just learned from Chinese officials that the investigation into his mother and father will last anywhere from one to six months. Prime Minister Stephen Harper says he asked about the detainment with Chinese President Xi Jinping. That particular case is of significant concern to us, to Canadians. That's why I raised it.

Can you tell me a little bit about your life at the time, before you're detained by China? What's your life like? Well, we had moved to that city called Dandong, which is on the border of China and North Korea, in 2007. So we've lived there seven years. We started a coffee shop. We were helping with an orphanage in the city, just kind of aid work with them.

And we're also doing aid into North Korea. So everything was legal, above board. We're very open about who we are, what we're doing. But we didn't suspect anything at all. And I understand you've been living in the country for about 30 years, right? You had children. You have children. Yep. Four children. We lived there since 1984.

So we went there, just graduated right from University of Toronto, went straight over there. Julia, you mentioned earlier that the night that you were detained, you found yourself in this Chinese police station. What kind of information are you getting initially? I said, why am I here? Like, I want to go home. And they said they were always speaking in Chinese, which for us was a challenge because even though we speak Chinese, we weren't familiar with the legal vocabulary.

And especially with I didn't even know the word for espionage. And so when they said it, I said, I have no idea what that is. And finally, they got somebody who came in and knew the one word in English. So they said espionage. And then I thought, for sure, this is a mistake. So basically, they were in a very sort of accusing manner, just saying we're accused of espionage. And I had no idea where Kevin was. I thought, okay, that's it. I'm going to be here by tomorrow. They'll settle this and figure it out and realize they took the wrong people. But then it went from there. It got worse because then I was put back in a black car

and driven out into the middle of nowhere. And at that moment, as we were leaving the city, I really, yeah, it was terrifying because I really didn't know what was going on. And it wasn't, terrifying because I really didn't know what was going on. And it wasn't it. I had no box to put that in. That sounds terrifying. I'm so sorry that you had to go through that. Kevin, what's happening to you at this time? I later learned that we were in the same building. I was in in one office with probably six or eight officers. And they've got a camera on me. And they're saying you have to sign this paper to agree to be investigated. I think, investigated about what? What are you talking about? And they said, well, you're a spy.

You're accused of being a spy. And I said, I'm not a spy. And they're like, why do I have to sign this paper? And this went on for a couple of hours at least. And finally, actually, I heard Julik sort of crying down the hallway. I think it was probably when they were taking her out of the building. She said, we only came here to help. And, you know, at that point, I thought, I might as well sign the paper because I don't, this is not going anywhere. And I don't know,

you know, what will happen next. But as soon as I signed it, they packed me up into a car, actually three cars. And we went back to our apartment and marched, you know, 18 of us up to our little apartment. And then they began to ransack the apartment until about 4 or 5 o'clock in the morning. And then what happens after that? So after they've ransacked your apartment, where do you go? Well, you know, 4 or 5 o'clock in the morning they said, get some clothes for you and Julia. And I thought, you know, this is going to be a little longer than I expected.

And at the time I grabbed our Biblesibles they took me back into a car and they drove me for about an hour outside of town ended up in what's now called a black jail and they um you know put me in this room that's where I stayed for the next six months and uh you know interrogations every day and two guards sitting in the room 24 7 you, you know, and the lights on 24-7 as well. And I'm wondering if you would be willing to tell me a little bit more about what life was like for you. What did the room look like? What did you eat? Were you allowed outside at all? So basically, time just stops. And you start living in seconds instead of in days.

And you lose track of any kind of a regular sequence. And you're just waiting and living by sound. Because if you hear knocks on the door, that signals the beginning of interrogation. And it turned out Kevin and I were in the same compound. We were the only two prisoners, 50 or 60 guards in that compound for us. And so you begin to then piece together what kind of a world you're now living in. But you're never given any information at all. So you really don't know from moment to moment what will happen in the next minute. And then you try to devise some way of making meaning in your day so that you can get through the 10

hours or 12 hours of awake time and try to lay down and try to sleep in the rest of the time, but the lights are on all the time. And you have two guards posted inside your room at all times, which is also very intimidating. And they're writing in notebooks what you do. And yeah, it's a whole different life. Yeah. And the food, well, it wasn't great. Just brought in a metal tray, kind of like a cafeteria style tray. And I didn't see Julie for probably close to three months.

And it took me a while to figure out she was actually in the same building. But every day interrogation for up to six hours a day, that was sort of a legal limit, apparently. But afterwards, they would sometimes come at odd times, they would say, you know, that you have homework to do, you have to write out what did you do? You know, on this day, you know, three years ago, who did you meet? And, you know, you're racking your brain for all these disinformation that just is not there. And, and can you tell me a little bit more about what these interrogations are like? Are people yelling at you? Do they ever hurt you physically?

Well, they never hurt me physically, neither of us physically. But the main investigator in my case was very stern at first and, you know, kind of raising his voice, yes, at times, trying to be intimidating. And, you know, he was because it was a very frightening situation because you don't know what's going to happen. And then, you know, over that period of time, they also threatened you with that execution. They threatened to send us to North Korea. They said we could get six or eight years in prison. You know, so it's very frightening because you know it can happen, but you know also you haven't done anything.

because you know it can happen, but you know also you haven't done anything. So you can't figure out why they keep going on like this because we knew nothing of what was going on outside of the four walls we were in. What do you know now about why you were arrested or detained? Well, what people pieced together very quickly, and it took me two years to find this out, is that because Canada arrested Su Bin, who turned out to be a spy for China, who was arrested at the request of the US and then later extradited there.

In a statement to CBC News, the US Department of Justice says Bin and his alleged conspirators accessed the computer networks of US defense contractors without authorization and stole data related to military aircraft and weapons systems. It was because of that, because of him, that we were arrested. But we were never told that by any authority. And even when the consular visits came, they were told not to talk about the case. I was told I couldn't talk about the case, and they were told the same thing, I guess. And so it began to make sense then, but for those two years, it never made sense. Did you ever get any hints from the questions that they were asking you?

Well, they kept saying you're spies. And I'm thinking, how did they, how could they come to that conclusion when we're not? I got a lot of hints because they said, okay, you had a conversation with this diplomat who came to visit your coffee shop and give me the details of all of those of all of that conversation. At the time, that had just been a very casual interaction. Maybe I was back from teaching and I was just sitting there and people come in and out and meet you of all kinds. They don't identify themselves. But all of a sudden they were focusing on diplomats and people of interest that were obviously on a very high radar for them.

And so because of their focus on that, I thought they're trying to piece together a case against us based on our interactions that were very, very casual with people of interest to them. Do you have a sense now why the Chinese government chose you? Is it because you had a coffee shop that a lot of diplomats were going to? You were like known? I think we figure now there's a number of reasons. One, we lived in a sensitive area so we lived on on the border of china north korea and that's just sensitive in itself it turns out we had a lot of interesting people come through our coffee shop you know

diplomats reporters basically because we had a really good coffee shop i mean we had really good coffee and um people would come there reporters would file stories from there about north you know to do with north korea and you know casually chat with file stories from there about North, you know, to do with North Korea and casually chat with people. It's not, we're not fishing for information or anything like that. I was hoping they would come back and buy more coffee, you know, or a sandwich or whatever. And the other reason I think would be that they, we had a lot of experience in China. So they had a lot of things they could ask, because we had been there for that many years. So there was, they felt they could thread together probably quite a big case by putting together all

the pieces of our life since we first went there. And so therefore, we had 30 plus years of experience. These months that you're detained, is there a moment that you lost hope? moment that you lost hope? I would say it just kept going on and on. And just, you know, the embassy, you know, tried to do their best. And they would say, you know, this is being raised at the highest levels and things like that. But it became very frustrating because nothing was happening. You know, and I finally said to them after quite some months that, you know, that's great that you're doing all this, but we're still here, you know, and nothing's moving. So it's very frustrating because you're in a vacuum information vacuum because they can't really tell you anything that's going on. And so you, you do begin to lose hope. And from little scribbles that I had marked down,

I can look back and see that definitely there were times when I lost hope. And I felt like this is, you know, could I just go now and just go up to heaven straight away and just leave this world because it's just really too hard. And I can't handle this anymore, this isolation. But those were there were those visits with the consular people. And every time messages then came from our families and photos that we were able to see and again those things renewed our hope. Yeah and one of the consular officials I'll just say was really really helpful like she tried to do her best but one thing she always said before she left was I hope I don't see you again and that that just planted hope it's like yeah I hope I don't see you again because I'm free. I'm gone. Right. Not that I would die, but that I would be out of this situation.

I know that you were released in February of 2015, but Kevin, you weren't released until September 2016. So can you tell me what happened there? Kevin was transferred into the prison, and I was able to go home on what was called restricted bail, which meant I still was waiting for my trial with surveillance and interrogations once a week just to report on if I went anywhere, talked to anyone, met anyone, what were their phone numbers. So I wouldn't actually say that was called release, but it was definitely not isolation and it was not prison either. And so that continued on until after the trial, which was another year and a half later. Okay. And then can you tell me, Kevin, how you got up to the trial and what happened there?

Well, I mean, February 3rd, I was moved to the prison and that's the local, what they would call the Dandong Detention Centre. And there's about 900 inmates in there. So I was put in cell 318. And there are about 13 to 14 inmates in the cell at any given time. So not much space and basically not much happened. And Julia, are you able to see, I know you're out on bail at this time, confined to your house. Are you able to see your husband at all? No, but they made a few exceptions

when I think Kevin's health got extremely bad. Kevin was on the verge of absolutely giving up. There was one time when he stopped eating. And then after that, they let me see him and told me convince him to start eating again, things like that. So there were a couple of occasions. Otherwise, I just had to wait for the embassy visit. And then they would give me, okay, Kevin's alive. So every month, I was always wondering, is he still alive? Is he okay? What's happening? And I would have to wait for that visit to get that information because there's no information flow back and forth between the prison and

anybody outside. Kevin, can you tell me more about that time for you? Well, I mean, it was really hard. I mean, I had to develop routines really to keep my sanity, I guess. And so I would wake up early every morning just to read and to pray. Then also, you know, lunchtime was a good time because most people would have a kind of afternoon nap. And then I just I waited there essentially for another, I guess it would be over a year until the trial. And I I didn't know anything about when it was going to happen because I was only given three days notice for the trial. And then our lawyer who we had to have a Chinese lawyer, and he was a good lawyer and he spoke English and he understood the system, but his hands were tied because of the nature of the case, he said. He said, you know, in maybe two to four weeks, we'll hear something from the court. Well,

it ended up being almost five months later that I went for my verdict hearing and then was deported right away. You were deported back to Canada? That's right. Okay. Okay, so what we know now is that after all this time that you spent in custody, Kevin, you were found guilty at your hearing. He wasn't known in Canada,

but he had this court appearance and a judge decided to deport Kevin Garrett. CBC News has learned that Kevin Garrett is home from China. That allowed you to be reunited with Julia. She had been previously released, albeit under very tight supervision from the Chinese authorities. Kevin was sent to prison.

Julia was released to house arrest. In the end, from detention to deportation, though, this experience went on for about two years from start to finish. Why do you think there was a decision made to deport you? I don't know that. I guess now, afterwards, is that because Su Bin, the gentleman who was arrested in Vancouver and extradited to the U.S., his trial had gone through and he had been, you know, sentenced in the U.S., I believe. And I think it just kind of became annoying that reporters kept bringing up our case whenever there was some sort of meeting

between Canada and China. That's part of my guess. And I suppose you are no longer leverage anymore too, right? Yeah, exactly, yeah. That sounds like an emotional roller coaster to say the very least, actually. Can I ask you both, what has this ordeal revealed to you

about the Chinese judicial system? You know, I can honestly say we were not spies, never engaged in anything close, even remotely related to espionage. And yet they took us to be spies and tried to prove that we were. And, you know, eventually I was convicted as a spy and then deported from China. You know, I can't say anything about the two Michaels, but I know in our case, we were just used really as pawns. But we didn't know it for those two years. And Julia, I would ask you, as you mentioned, there's a lot of parallels between your case and the case of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor. The Canadian government has been very clear that they believe these detentions to be arbitrary as well,

based on absolutely nothing. It is unfortunate that China continues to move forward on these arbitrary detentions. We will continue to stand up for these Canadians. If I could ask you, Julia, if you could speak with either of these men right now, what would you say to them? I'd just say I'm so sorry you have to go through this.

I would say, you know, pray, ask for strength to get through every day. And this is the human cost that sometimes people in the political sphere forget. And yeah, I'm really sorry you have to go through this impact. And we understand day by day what you're feeling. And there are people with you that are working on your behalf, even though you don't maybe know them or realize it, you are not forgotten. You're not alone. Thank you so much to you both. Okay, thank you. You can find out more about Kevin and Julia Garrett's story in their book, Two Tears on the Window. Now, here in Canada, Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou has filed a civil claim against the Attorney General,

Canadian Border Services Agency authorities, and an RCMP constable, alleging that her constitutional rights were violated when she was detained. She continues to live in Vancouver on bail, waiting for her extradition hearing. The federal government says Canada will be moving forward with the U.S. extradition request. And in related news, the Chinese government has blocked

a major Canadian export company from shipping canola seeds to China. It's another example of how far trade and diplomatic ties between the two countries have fallen. That's it for today. Though stay tuned for our episode tomorrow, we're going to be breaking down the testimony of Jerry Butz, the Prime Minister's right-hand man, and it's going to be really interesting. Thanks for listening to FrontBurner. dot ca slash podcasts. It's 2011 and the Arab Spring is raging. A lesbian activist in Syria

starts a blog. She names it Gay Girl in Damascus. Am I crazy? Maybe. As her profile grows, so does the danger. The object of the email was please read this while sitting down. It's like a genie came out of the bottle and you can't put it back. Gay Girl Gone. Available now.