OTTAWA — A Canadian man who worked with a charity that provided food to North Koreans returned to Canada on Thursday after being held in China on espionage charges for just over two years.
The family of the man, Kevin Garratt, who is from Vancouver, British Columbia, said in a brief statement that he was deported after a court hearing in Dandong, China, on Tuesday.
“The Garratt family thanks everyone for their thoughts and prayers, and also thanks the many individuals who worked to secure Kevin’s release,” the statement said.
Mr. Garratt’s detention dampened relations between Canada and China, particularly under the previous Conservative government. Early this month, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau raised Mr. Garratt’s case during a visit to China.
Mr. Garratt and his wife, Julia Dawn Garratt, were operating a coffee house in China near the border with North Korea as part of a Christian aid mission when they were both arrested in August 2014. Chinese officials later said that they were being held on “suspicion of stealing and spying to obtain state secrets.”
Ms. Garratt was released on bail and allowed to leave China. But Chinese officials announced in January that Mr. Garratt would be tried on the charges.
The couple’s arrest was among the measures China took against members of Christian aid groups active near the border with North Korea at the time.
In a sermon posted online but no longer available, Mr. Garratt said that he had been told by God during a prayer meeting to move to Dandong and open a cafe.
“We’re trying to reach North Korea with God, with Jesus and with practical assistance,” Mr. Garratt said in the sermon, which was for a time on the website of the Terra Nova Church in Surrey, British Columbia. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/16/world/americas/canada-kevin-garratt-spy-china-north-korea.html?ref=asia
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