Mike Pompeo calls on China to release Canadians facing spying charges, calling Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor’s arrests ‘politically motivated and groundless’

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday denounced Beijing’s decision to formally charge two Canadian nationals with spying last Friday as “politically motivated”.

“The United States is extremely concerned by the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) decision to proceed with formal charges against Canadian citizens Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor,” Pompeo said.

Kovrig and Spavor were detained in China in early December 2018, nine days after Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of the Chinese telecom equipment maker Huawei, was arrested in Vancouver at the request of the US.

On Friday, more than 18 months after Kovrig and Spavor were first taken into custody, China announced formal charges against the two Canadians.

“These charges are politically motivated and completely groundless,” Pompeo said in a State Department announcement.

“The United States stands with Canada in calling on Beijing for the immediate release of the two men and rejects the use of these unjustified detentions to coerce Canada,” he said.

The case against the two Canadians is widely viewed in Washington and Ottawa as retaliation for Meng Wangzhou’s arrest.

Pompeo’s statement follows a similar one by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who called on Friday for the two men’s release after the charges were unveiled, and has previously claimed that their case was explicitly linked to Meng.

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The daughter of Huawei’s founder, Ren Zhengfei, Meng is accused of lying to authorities about Huawei’s business dealings with heavily sanctioned Iran.

Washington is seeking Meng’s extradition to the US, and a Canadian judge ruled last month that her trial is valid and must continue.

According to Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian, Kovrig was formally charged last week with “secretly gathering state secrets and intelligence for overseas forces.”

Spavor, he said, was charged with “secretly gathering state secrets and illegally providing them to overseas forces.”

“The facts are clear and evidence solid and sufficient,” he said twice at a foreign ministry press briefing on Friday, without elaborating on the charges.

Pompeo also addressed ongoing concerns that Chinese authorities have not provided Kovrig and Spavor with access to consular support during their detention.

“Additionally, we echo Canada’s call for immediate consular access to its two citizens, in accordance with the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, as China has prohibited such access for almost six months, and the world has no knowledge of the two Canadians’ condition,” he said.

Meng is living under house arrest in her C$13.6 million (US$10 million) mansion in Vancouver.