MONTREAL: Canadian authorities have arrested a retired police officer on charges of foreign interference on behalf of China, officials said Friday (Jul 21), amid mounting tensions between the two countries.
William Majcher, 60, is accused of using “his knowledge and his extensive network of contacts in Canada to obtain intelligence or services to benefit the People’s Republic of China,” Canada’s federal police said in a statement.
Majcher, a resident of Hong Kong, has been under investigation since the fall of 2021 and authorities believe he “contributed to the Chinese government’s efforts to identify and intimidate an individual outside the scope of Canadian law.”
Majcher appeared by videoconference on Friday at the Longueuil courthouse outside Montreal to face charges of committing “preparatory acts for the benefit of a foreign entity” as well as conspiracy.
Camille Habel, spokeswoman for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police told AFP that Majcher had been arrested in Vancouver and is being held there until his next appearance in court on Wednesday.
Ottawa and Beijing have been at loggerheads since 2018, when a Huawei executive was arrested on a US warrant in Vancouver and two Canadian nationals were detained in China in apparent retaliation.
While all three have since been released, tensions have continued, with Beijing blaming Ottawa for its alignment with Washington’s China policy and Canadian authorities regularly accusing China of interfering in its public affairs.
In recent months, suspicions of Chinese interference in Canada’s last two federal elections have put Justin Trudeau’s government under pressure.
A report released by a special government rapporteur in May concluded that China had indeed sought to interfere in Canada’s two last ballots but failed to sway their outcomes.
The same month, Canada announced the expulsion of a Chinese diplomat accused of targeting a lawmaker critical of Beijing.
China has repeatedly denied these allegations.
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