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The Two Michaels are returning to Canada.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Friday evening that Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor had been released by the Chinese government and were on a plane bound for Canada.
“These two men have gone through an unbelievably difficult ordeal,” Trudeau said during a brief media availability. “For the past 1,000 days, they have shown strength, perseverance, resilience and grace and we are all inspired by that.”
Kovrig and Spavor were arrested in China in December of 2018 and charged with espionage, shortly after Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou was detained in Vancouver.
The United States had been seeking Meng’s extradition from Canada to face fraud charges.
On Friday, Meng — Huawei’s chief financial officer — resolved criminal charges against her in a deal with the U.S. Justice Department.
Under the terms of the so-called deferred prosecution agreement, the Justice Department will dismiss the charges late next year — four years after her arrest — and Meng must accept responsibility for misrepresenting her company’s business dealings in Iran.
The Justice Department also dropped its request to have Meng extradited to the U.S. Shortly after that hearing in Brooklyn, N.Y., Meng appeared in court in Vancouver and was released from her bail conditions.
She eventually left on an Air China flight bound for Shenzhen, China, where Huawei is based.
About an hour later, Trudeau called a media conference, at which he announced Kovrig and Spavor were on their way back to Canada.
Trudeau thanked the men’s families for supporting Kovrig and Spavor during their captivity, government officials who worked to get the men released, and Canada’s allies who also helped secure their freedom.
“And I want to thank Canadians, who have kept them in our thoughts and remained determined in the core value that Canadians have of standing up for each other and looking out for each other,” Trudeau said.
China has always maintained there wasn’t a connection between Meng’s case and the imprisonment of the two Canadians. However, the Chinese government also hinted that if she were allowed to go home, the two Michaels could benefit.
— With files from The Associated Press and The Canadian Press