It's been exactly three years since Canadian Michael Kovrig returned to Canada after spending 1,019 days in a Chinese prison. Now, he's publicly speaking out about his arrest and detainment for the first time. "They're never going to see me cry.
They're not going to see me being weak, because if they do, they'll exploit that," Kovrig said in an interview with CTV National News Chief Anchor Omar Sachedina about his mindset while in captivity. On Dec. 10, 2018, Kovrig and fellow Canadian Michael Spavor were separately detained by China on allegations of espionage, just days after Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou was arrested in Canada on behalf of the U.
S. Their detention was widely considered to be in retaliation for Meng's arrest. 'She doesn't know if she's ever going to see me again' Kovrig previously worked as a Canadian diplomat but was working as an adviser and analyst for the International Crisis Group based in Hong Kong at the time of his arrest.
On the night of Dec. 10, 2018, Kovrig was in Beijing to visit his pregnant girlfriend and was taken after returning home from dinner. "They grabbed me and in front of my pregnant girlfriend, dragged me into a black SUV, stuffed me into the back seat, put a set of handcuffs on me, blindfolded me and drove off into the night," Kovrig told Sachedina.
"You can imagine what that was like for (my girlfriend). It's an abrupt shock while she's pregnant, and she doesn't know if she's going to see me ever again." Once at a secret location, .