Episode 13: The Final Chapter

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Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou is charged with fraud by the U.S. Department of Justice. She's arrested in Vancouver and sought for extradition to New York. Two Canadians are arrested in China in apparent retaliation. Relations between China and Canada deteriorate. No solution to the crisis. appears to be imminent and U.S. citizens go to the polls.

Judge Ann Donnelly was almost an hour late for the last-minute hearing when she stepped into the Eastern District of New York courtroom on the afternoon of Friday, September 24th. A crowd of journalists flanked the entrance of the Brooklyn courthouse, most of them here to get a glimpse of anyone associated with one of the most high-profile cases to pass through the building in years, the sex trafficking trial of our...

R. Kelly, the R&B superstar accused in a decades-long scheme to recruit women and underage girls for sex. As it happened, Donnelly had just finished giving instructions to the jurors. tasked with deciding R. Kelly's fate. Jury began deliberations today in the federal trial of singer R. Kelly. The R&B artist is accused of kidnapping, bribery, sex trafficking, and racketeering, among other charges.

That courtroom was packed. This courtroom, however, the one Donnelly was about to bring into session, still had empty seats. But hundreds of people from around the globe listened on a teleconference line as a clerk read the number of the docket into the record, 8-CCR-4178. And the name of the case, USA v. Wanzhou Meng.

The hearing was called just hours earlier on receipt of a letter from the U.S. Department of Justice announcing the need to address with this court a resolution of the charges against the defendant in this matter. That letter and Meng Wanzhou's name posted on the electronic docket sparked a firestorm of speculation.

The case against the Huawei chief financial officer may not have matched R. Kelly's prosecution for celebrity appeal, but Meng's arrest for extradition had strained ties between countries and thrown innocent lives into the balance. Meng's face appeared on a television screen in front of the judge, streamed live from her lawyer's office in downtown Vancouver.

the prosecution and defense introduced themselves before donnelly turned her attention to mung swearing in a translator and then reading the charges against her conspiracy to commit bank fraud bank fraud Conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Wire fraud. Do you understand the charges, the judge asked. Yes.

ms mung how do you plead to the charges guilty or not guilty the judge asked mung answered in mandarin not guilty but that was not the end of the hearing David Kessler, an assistant U.S. attorney in the Eastern District's National Security and Cybercrime Section, took to his feet. He had a deal to announce. The language of the arrangement was legal, a motion for the exclusion of time. But as the prosecutor explained it, the implications became clear.

the government agreed to drop the charges against mong wanzhou in exchange for her signature on a document in which she essentially admitted to the allegations against her but not to those adding up to a crime It's called a deferred prosecution agreement. Judge Donnelly asked Meng if she understood the deal, if she had read the statement of facts, and if anyone had threatened or coerced her into signing.

The translator spoke rapidly, relaying Meng's one-word answers in return, yes, yes, and no. And then Kessler told the judge what the U.S. Department of Justice would do in return. to make a phone call that would set in motion a breakneck relay of events from Washington to Ottawa to Vancouver to Beijing, closing the book by the end of day on a legal and geopolitical nightmare that many had feared insoluble.

The call to Canada's Minister of Justice. The reason to inform the Canadian Crown the United States of America no longer wanted to extradite Meng Wanzhou. Judge Ann Donnelly listened to everything Kessler said before making a final check to see if Meng was on board. She was. I think we're done here, the judge said.

I'm Stephen Quinn, and you're listening to Sanctioned, the Arrest of a Telecom Giant, a CBC Vancouver original podcast about Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou and her fight against possible extradition and jailing in the United States. It is a story of legal conflict and geopolitical tensions.

It has been nearly a year since we last put out an episode, and as you may have gathered from the introduction, a lot has happened in the past 12 months, and in particular, on that one day in late September. In this episode, we are going to catch you up on what you've missed and take you through the extraordinary events of a day that, in many ways, turned much of the story on its head.

A deal between U.S. prosecutors and Meng Wanzhou. A deal between diplomats for the freedom of the so-called two Michaels, Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig, the two Canadians. tamed in China for nearly three years in apparent retaliation for Meng's arrest. And finally, two homecomings stagecrafted to the point where the protagonists in this extraordinary drama

found themselves literally crossing paths in the night skies between Canada and China as events raced toward their conclusion. This is Sanctioned, episode 13, the final chapter. Are you comfortable? Yes. You are? I am. You're going to work your own mic? Yes. Okay. Glad to hear it. And CBC reporter Jason Proctor, you have, of course, been our guide through all of this.

And when we last spoke, Meng Wanzhou and her lawyers were about to embark on months of legal arguments. And Michael Kovrig's wife, Vina Najibullah, had just marked a grim milestone. his 560th day in Chinese captivity by speaking publicly for the first time about his ordeal. And that number had grown to more than a thousand days when all of this had happened. So catch us up.

Well, Stephen, I'll try to boil it down as much as I can. And for starters, it's worth remembering there's always been a set of what you might think of as a parallel... tracks to this whole story events inside the courtroom and events outside in the bigger world and realistically it would

appear that the events outside were always going to trump what went on inside the BC courtroom where Meng Wanzhou argued against extradition to New York, perhaps the most significant event from Canada's point of view in the past year. was the election of a new president in the United States. President Joe Biden's first call to a world leader was to Justin Trudeau. Trudeau would also be the

he paid a visit to. And in both those meetings, Trudeau raised China's detention of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor. Their situation had become even more dire in the past year. They were subjected to secret trials. Michael Spavor was convicted of espionage and sentenced to 11 years, and the verdict was still out on Michael Kovrig. Biden...

affirmed his support for the two men and for Canada. Trudeau was asked from the get-go whether he wanted Biden to orchestrate a deal like the one we saw laid out in that Brooklyn courtroom. His answer was vague, but I mean, the meaning was not.

I am extremely confident that the incoming American administration will continue to be a good partner to Canada and other nations around the world as we look to impress upon China the approach, that the approach they are taking is simply not working while at the same time impressing upon them the importance of returning the two Canadians who have been arbitrarily detained for over 700 days.

And Jason, you mentioned these parallel tracks and events inside the courtroom. Where was that headed at the point that this deal was made? The Crown and Meng's lawyers had wrapped their arguments in the extradition case just a little more than a month earlier. So the decision lay with B.C. Supreme Court Associate Chief Justice Heather Holmes has to be said this was going to be...

A monstrous ruling for her to work her way through. The next date for Meng to appear in court was supposed to be October 21st. two months after final arguments, and even then, Holmes said she wouldn't have had a final ruling, just a possible timeline for when one might... And what was it that made this decision and this case just so complex? I think most experts would say that it was Meng Wanzhou's extraordinary dream team of defense lawyers, virtually...

Any lawyer in Canada who knew anything about extradition appeared to be involved. And we're talking about the highest paid litigators in Canada. And they spent months crafting arguments to undermine the basis. of the extradition request itself and the ways in which the arrest and the case had been carried out. In brief... As listeners may remember, Meng was accused of lying to an HSBC executive at a meeting in Hong Kong in August 2013 about Huawei's control of a subsidiary called...

Skycom, which was in turn accused of violating US economic sanctions against Iran. So the upshot was that when HSBC agreed to keep handling Huawei's financial transactions, Through the U.S. banking system, based on Meng Wanzhou's word, they were also unwittingly handling Skycom's money, meaning HSBC was also at risk of violating U.S. economic sanctions. It's a little complex, and even the judge seemed to struggle with the logic of it. But basically, the prosecution said...

Meng's lies could have cost HSBC money either through the loss of the bank's reputation, fines or actual charges. And you said that Judge Holmes seemed to struggle a bit with the underlying concept. what would she have had to decide if this case had gone all the way? The primary question would have been if... All of this had happened in Canada, given the evidence the prosecution said it had.

Could a jury convict? So that sounds pretty simple, but here you had all these documents the defense produced that suggested senior people at HSBC knew exactly what they were getting themselves into. And there was also the very real question of whether anyone had actually suffered any loss here. HSBC was never charged. Any loans they gave Huawei were all paid back. And Holmes asked a lot of questions during the hearing.

And what about those other arguments around the way the arrest and the case were carried out? Well, believe it or not, those actually took up the bulk of the court time, including weeks of testimony from the border agents and RCMP officers who dealt with Meng on the day she flew into Vancouver's airport. It was very dramatic. They admitted...

handing passcodes for her phone by accident, they said, from one agency to another, which is in breach of the law. The question was whether it was intentional. One of the Canada Border Services Agency supervisors broke down in tears on the stand. The guy who mishandled the passcodes looked miserable. The defense accused him basically of deliberately violating Meng's rights and then trying to cover up the evidence. That was the basis for one of their arguments. The actions of...

Former U.S. President Donald Trump were also brought into the proceedings. The defense claimed he was using Meng Wanzhou as a bargaining chip. And there were actually four lines of attack in total. The third, they called them branches. echoed the concerns Holmes raised about the essence of the allegations. The defence claimed the US deliberately lied to Canada about the strength of its case to justify Meng's arrest.

Arguments on the fourth branch were kind of like being in law school. This deep... dive into the question of international jurisdiction and a claim the US was reaching way beyond its borders and legal rights by trying to prosecute a Chinese national for lying to the executive of a British bank in Hong Kong.

So how does all of this relate to that deferred prosecution agreement that the U.S. Assistant DA David Kessler first revealed before U.S. District Judge Ann Donnelly? on that afternoon of September 24th. Well, for that, you have to look to that other track, the political one, because we've since learned that two weeks before that court appearance, according to his press secretary, Jim Psaki, President Joe Biden...

spoke directly by phone with Chinese President Xi Jinping. These two leaders raised the cases of these individuals, but there was no negotiation about it. It was President Biden raising and pressing again for the release of these two Michaels. as is something that happens in every engagement we do with the Chinese or had up to this point in time. And that call, Stephen, apparently set the process in motion that would unfold on this one dramatic day.

Good morning. Do you look happy? Meng Wanzhou's lawyers emerged from the Brooklyn courthouse into a warm day in the heart of Brooklyn Heights. Not all the reporters waiting were there for R. Kelly. The questions continued as lawyers Michelle Levin and James Broshan made their way through the plaza. but neither were giving anything away. Personally, how are you feeling about the conditions now for your clients? They're all set forth in the agreement. Do you feel this was a just case?

Politically motivated. What do you feel? Ma'am, what would you like the world to know about this case, sir? I mean, just in general terms that you can talk about. No, further comment. Thanks. They were pleased, but the New York lawyers wouldn't say why. The answer to that question came in an email which hit the inboxes of the more than 300 members of the media accredited by the B.C. courts seconds later. at 11.36 Pacific Time, 2.36 Eastern.

Court announcement, USA versus Meng. The notice went on to say that an appearance in Meng Wanzhou's extradition case had been set for 2 p.m. Pacific, roughly two and a half hours away, in front of Associate Chief. Justice Heather Holmes. The New York chapter of the story closed as the media stopped asking questions and the lawyers drove away.

But in Vancouver, a crowd was already gathering on the courthouse steps. It's less than a kilometre due south on Howe Street from the offices of Richard Peck, Meng Wanzhou's lead Canadian counsel. to the B.C. Supreme Court building. But on September 24th, Meng travelled that distance in a long black SUV, tailed by other vehicles filled with security and advisers, friends and Chinese consulate officials.

Around noon, she made her way to a hotel, kitty-cornered to the courthouse, steps from the spot where she posed for a premature victory photograph. more than a year earlier, on the eve of a decision that did not go her way. Those pictures were taken as only one reporter and one photographer watched, both hidden. A very different scene played out now, as journalists lined up for the few seats that would be available in the courtroom, limited by social distancing.

The events were broadcast live at noon and again at 1pm to news networks across North America, with the inevitable question being not just about Meng and the possibility of a return to China, but what does this mean for the two Michaels? Meng Wanzhou's legal team were the first of the lawyers involved in the case to make their way into the building. Nearly all of them were there, some having flown in from Toronto. They walked as one group, the procession carrying an appearance of...

Lawyers for the Attorney General followed and supporters began shouting.

A black SUV left the hotel, carrying Meng Wanzhou past the crowd and into a basement parking lot. And as the hour drew closer and closer to two and the lineup of waiting reporters failed to budge, it became clear that most... of the media was not going to make it inside the courtroom where the lawyers were taking their places, and Meng sat in the prisoner's dock, dressed in a black and white polka dot dress and a smile on her face.

Holmes walked into the courtroom, the lawyers stood, and the clerk called the court to order. Prosecutor John Gibb Carsley was the first to return to his feet, telling Holmes, it appears that this extradition proceeding has now reached. its final chapter. And then he said that Crown was seeking permission to withdraw the extradition request from Meng Wanzhou. Richard Peck was next to his feet.

He explained that Meng's legal team had felt it important to attend the day's hearing in person. Holmes signed the papers that would end the proceedings against Meng Wanzhou and set her free from the conditions of her bail. She turned to the defense and crown, thanking them for their work and all those who assisted in the background. And then the judge addressed Meng Wanzhou directly, saying, Meng thanked the judge. and then turned to Richard Peck and hugged him.

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And Jason Proctor, what happened when Meng Wanzhou emerged from courtroom 55? It was a zoo. There was a crowd of people waiting immediately outside the courtroom. They cheered. When Meng walked out and she began hugging her friends and colleagues, reporters who didn't make it into the courtroom lined the steps from the fifth floor to the entrance where Meng's vehicles were waiting. The first to pass were the defence and Crown lawyers.

none of whom commented. One of them told me there was a gag order attached to the Deferred Prosecution Agreement. Then Meng began making her way down to the door, and if anything... This throng around her seemed to multiply as she made her way through the sliding glass doors to the outside of the BC Supreme Court building. A stand filled with microphones had been set up in front of a row of TV cameras, and Mung indicated that she did want to say something.

She's actually quite a slight woman, not very tall. She looked like she might get crushed as she inched her way to this podium. Supporters were shouting. You could barely hear. And she held a handful of cue cards in front of her. No mask. And then she began to talk. Firstly, I'd like to thank the Oracle Associate Chief Justice Holmes for her fairness in the whole legal proceedings. I also appreciate...

the Crown for their professionalism, and the Canadian government for upholding the rule of law. Many thanks to the sheriffs for their hard work. I'm also grateful to Canadian people and media friends for your tolerance. Sorry for the inconvenience caused. Over the past three years, My life has been turned upside down. It was disruptive time for me as a mother, a wife, and a company executive.

But I believe every cloud has a silver lining. It really was an invaluable experience in my life. I will never forget. all the good wishes I've received from people around the world. As the saying goes, the greater the difficulty, the greater the growth. Once again, thank you so much. And Jason Proctor, that sounds very much like a victory speech. Was this, in the end, a victory for Meng? On a personal level, undoubtedly.

She never admitted to any criminal guilt in this. And she reached a deferred prosecution agreement with US prosecutors that allows her to return to China and do nothing more than keep the peace and be of good behavior. So, of course. That has to be seen as a win for her. But she didn't mention the agreed statement of facts. She signed.

as part of this deal. And that's certainly something the US sees as a victory in its fight with the other defendant in the case against Meng, the one still facing charges. Huawei, the company itself. I have a copy of the agreed statement of facts in which Meng admits that a number of the statements she made to HSBC about Huawei's control of that sanctions-violating subsidiary Skycom were, quote,

untrue and that it would have been material to the bank to know that Huawei controlled Skycom. That will all now be usable in the U.S. court case.

And what about the extradition proceedings here? I mean, obviously, the judge will never have to deliver a ruling. So was that all just for naught? You know, that's a question I found myself asking a lot as this day unfolded. We're talking weeks of court time, reams of documents and arguments. I'm just a reporter, but I've written dozens of stories on every twist and turn and nuance of legal argument over the past two and a half years. I was genuinely curious.

as to how the judge was going to rule on the puzzling and intricate questions the defense had posed. Part of me even wondered, like, well... How far did she get? You know, is she secretly upset about this because she's put all this work in for nothing or is she thrilled because she never has to make a public decision now? Did she start writing?

Or was she putting it off till, you know, the last minute the way I probably would have done? Anyway, I spoke with Michael Byers about this. He holds the Canada Research Chair in Global Politics and International Law at UBC. He's an expert on extradition and he was actually peripherally involved with a case in the late 90s that saw Spain try to extradite the late Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet from the UK where he was getting medical treatment.

He followed Meng's case carefully, and he had an interesting take on the legal legacy of the case. The only other long-term relevance of this case in terms of Canadian extradition law is the students of extradition law. and I would include here the lawyers who represent people in extradition processes, will comb through the records of the extradition as it took place up to September 2021.

To see the very clever and sometimes compelling arguments put forward by this incredible team of lawyers, both representing Ms. Meng and representing the Crown, there was a lot of really hard thinking. that was transferred onto publicly available documents. And although none of those arguments were allowed to carry the day in this case, they may well do so in some future.

So the idea being that while the case itself is dead in the water, the arguments before Holmes can still be applied in other cases? Yes. And I should say as well, Byers also thinks the issues raised in court. may have other more immediate and tangible impacts. The criticism of the actions of Canada Border Service's agency officers and RCMP, for instance, you know, the way Meng was questioned by CBSA before police arrested her, neither agency will like...

want to face scrutiny for that kind of behaviour again. I can't help but think that one of the consequences of this case is that the Canadian Border Services Agency will likely be... more careful in future about alerting someone that they are under arrest before they begin questioning them concerning the allegations. The CBSA, by delaying for three hours that notification to Ms. Meng, may well have put the extradition at risk.

And so with the judge bringing the proceedings to a close and Meng's statement on the courthouse steps, was there any word at that point about what this could mean for the two Michaels? None. And certainly that was the giant question left hanging in the air.

Meng was beaming. The two Michaels weren't part of the court process. But returning to that parallel track for a moment, we were hearing nothing there except that the path was now clear for her to think about a return to China. She took no questions.

And as you can imagine, there were a lot of questions about her thoughts on the fact that two men were still in jail at that point while she was out here pondering the first minutes of her freedom. Mung said nothing, and for the first time we noticed... She was no longer wearing that GPS ankle monitoring bracelet that had been strapped to her left ankle since her release from jail after her initial arrest in December 2018. She walked down the steps. An SUV was...

waiting on the street. The cameras followed. She climbed in the vehicle and that was it. Meng Wanzhou's convoy sped through the afternoon traffic, across a bridge spanning False Creek, the gateway to the village at the heart of Vancouver's 2010 Olympics, and the centre of the expo site where the city welcomed the world in 1986. an event that is still seen as Vancouver's first real test as an international destination.

Meng's vehicle carried her away from the court, past the old expo grounds, past the multi-million dollar home where she had spent much of the past 33 months under a form of gold-plated house arrest, a captive in a... gilded cage. It takes between 30 and 45 minutes to drive from Vancouver's downtown to the airport and Meng's destination soon became apparent.

Her vehicle pulled into the international departures area in the main terminal. All eyes turned to an Air China flight that had arrived earlier in the day, a chartered Boeing 777. The flight was scheduled for departure back to China, to Shenzhen, where Huawei and Meng are headquartered.

Within hours, a reporter tweeted out an image of Meng Wanzhou in line at a security gate, a black purse hanging from her shoulder and her hand on a gray suitcase. A masked security guard appeared ready to scan her ticket. and Meng disappeared from sight. A short while later, about quarter past four, Air China Flight 552 finished boarding, closed its doors, and began to pull away from the jetway.

The plane made its way to one of the runways on the south side of the terminal, slowly pulling into a queue that would place it facing due west for takeoff. Finally, Air China Flight 552 began taxiing down the runway, picking up speed until the wheels lifted off the ground, the plane arcing northwest, carrying Meng Wanzhou away from Canada and back to her home.

It was 4.27 p.m. Pacific Time on Friday, September 24th. The plane disappeared into the skies, and 45 minutes later, Canada's Prime Minister called a news conference. About 12 minutes ago, the aircraft carrying Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor left Chinese airspace, and they're on their way home. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke shortly before 6 p.m. Pacific time, a little more than an hour after Meng Wanzhou's departure. He stood at a lone microphone with a row of Canadian flags behind him.

boarded at about 7.30 Ottawa time, along with Dominic Barton, Canada's ambassador to China. These two men have gone through an unbelievably difficult ordeal. For the past thousand days, they have shown strength, perseverance, resilience, and grace. And we are all inspired by that.

I want to thank their families who've been there for them, supporting them in every way they could, and supporting us in the work we've done to secure their release. I want to thank the countless... diplomatic and other Canadian officials who have been tireless over the past two and a half years to secure the return of these two Canadians.

I want to thank our allies and partners around the world and the international community who've stood steadfast in solidarity with Canada and with these two Canadians. And finally, I want to thank Canadians who have kept them in our thoughts and remain determined. in the core value that Canadians have of standing up for each other and looking out for each other. These two men have been through an unbelievably difficult situation, but it is inspiring and it is good news for all of us.

that they are on their way home to their families. After that statement, Trudeau took only a few questions. He said little more about the deal or the behind-the-scenes work that went into its achievement. But at one point, a Radio Canada reporter asked the Prime Minister if he had spoken directly. directly to China's president. I had occasion to speak with President Xi a number of years ago on this matter and we will continue to ensure that...

that we are standing up for Canadian interests around the world. I know Canadians are very happy that these two citizens that we've thought of so many times over the past thousand days are now on their way home.

And Jason Proctor, we heard Prime Minister Justin Trudeau say there that he had occasion to speak with Chinese President Xi Jinping a number of years ago. But that doesn't actually suggest that it was pressure from Ottawa that sealed this deal. Yeah, hardly. And realistically, most experts have always said the pressure to get a deal like this would have had to come from the United States, which has so much more weight to throw around than Canada. You'll remember we heard earlier about...

that call President Joe Biden made to Xi a few weeks before this deal. It will probably be a long time before we know the exact details. of what happened to precipitate Meng's deferred prosecution agreement and the release of the two Michaels. But it's hard to imagine direct communication between the leaders of these two superpowers didn't play a role here. So at this point...

It's Friday evening, September 24th. The two Michaels were headed back to Canada, and Meng Wanzhou was winging her way toward China. I happen to know that this case has been very much a big part of your life. for nearly three years. What did you make of that? You know, on some levels, it was staggering just how quickly everything happened, how fast this went from crisis to solution.

In a matter of hours, one of the big takeaways came with the release of the two Michaels at practically the same moment as Mung boarded a plane here. It's hard not to see that as a naked demonstration of the fact that this was... Obviously, hostage diplomacy on China's part. They didn't do anything to hide that inference. You know, what else would a reasonable person make of it? And ultimately, was it successful?

Canada's taken a strong position internationally against hostage diplomacy as a result of the situation with the two Michaels. And we've brought a number of our allies on board. You know, last February, Canada launched the declaration against arbitrary... tension in state-to-state relations, an initiative aimed at protecting citizens working and living overseas from being used as pawns in disputes between their respective governments.

At this point, 66 countries have come on board, including the UK and the US and the EU. I'll note Ukraine is a party to the declaration, but Russia is not. And China is notably absent. And, you know, I guess the question... From China's point of view is whether hostage diplomacy was effective in this case. You know, that's obviously something for others to judge, not me. And there are still Canadians, though, being held in China. Yes.

Most notably, Robert Schellenberg, another British Columbian we've talked about. on the podcast before. He's facing the death penalty in a drug trafficking case that made headlines after a court in China overruled a 15-year sentence in favour of death in the months right after Meng's arrest.

In August, before Meng's release, an appeal court upheld the death penalty. But the case is now with China's Supreme Court, which many are hoping will cut Schellenberg a break given this reset in Canada-China relations. Stephen, though, you know... I can't help but circle back to those parallel tracks I mentioned earlier. And that's really the part of all this that sat with me most deeply that for all this time.

The participants in this courtroom drama acted as though they were in some kind of hermetically sealed chamber apart from the geopolitical storms raging outside. At the end of the day, like you say. It was really all for naught. We kept talking about being a rule of law country. Meng Wanzhou even mentioned it in her speech before leaving. So what role did the rule of law ultimately play in this solution?

We stuck to our guns until the point where the U.S. blinked and reached an agreement as part of its legal process. But still, for two and a half years, lawyers argued. Politicians in Canada and the US and China threw insults back and forth. The reputations of border guards and police officers were dragged through the mud. A woman spent millions to keep herself out of a US jail, and two men were subjected to inhuman conditions in Chinese prison. Could any of it have been avoided?

And in the end, you know, everyone declared victory anyway, the US, China and Canada. So what can you take from that? You know, you mentioned Meng's courthouse statement sounded like the victory speech. It was nothing compared to her return to China at about 9.50 Beijing time on Saturday night. Right now, here she is. A red carpet had been rolled across the runway to the bottom of the steps up to the plane. A crowd of supporters cheered. She changed into a long red dress.

Miss Meng Wanzhou waving her hand to the crowd. It was like a royal homecoming. Finally I came back home. After a torturous more than 1,000 days of waiting, I finally came back to the embrace of my motherland. It's a really big struggle for me. But when I paint down and cite food on Chinese soil, I feel the warmth, and I'm so thrilled. My mother lied. Right now, I'm back to you. She went on to thank President Xi Jinping and to express her deep love for China, its flags and its citizens.

And I should say, in the days that followed, Chinese politicians painted this deal as a complete victory for their position. You'd have to look far and wide to find any acknowledgement of the fact that she actually admitted to telling the lie. that sparked this whole affair to begin with so many years ago. The Royal Canadian Air Force Challenger jet carrying Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig touched down at Calgary's airport around 5 a.m. local time.

There was no red carpet, no cheering crowd, no microphone, just a pair of crew members in fatigues, standing at attention as Michael Spavor bounded down the steps, followed by Michael Kovrig and Canada's ambassador to Canada. China. Both Spavor and Kovrig wore suit jackets and dress shirts. Kovrig stretched his arms before buttoning his blazer. Canada's Prime Minister stood a few metres away, facing them alongside Foreign Affairs Minister Mark Garneau.

Trudeau touched elbows with both men, a nod to the pandemic that began in the country they had just left, only to upend the world they were stepping back into, all while the two Michaels were behind bars. There were no statements and within hours, the two Michaels would part ways. Michael Spavor staying in Calgary, his home, as Michael Kovrig got back on the jet before flying to Toronto.

Kavrig had separated from his wife, Vina Najibullah, in the years before he moved to China, but she had described him as her one, fighting tirelessly for the return that was now about to become a reality. as Nadja Bullock and Kovrig's sister waited outside Pearson Airport. There are no words really to describe the emotions that have been going through all of us for the last 24 hours. Joy, relief.

overwhelming gratitude for everyone who has worked to make this day happen. Kavrig stepped off the plane in a black t-shirt and jeans. His skin was pale, he had lost weight, but he was smiling. He embraced Najibullah for a few long minutes on the tarmac, steps away from the nose of the Challenger jet.

The two of them walked toward a fence where reporters gathered the sounds of the airport competing with Michael Kovrig's voice. The words are hard to catch, but Kovrig looked at the camera and said, And with that, Michael Kovrig walked away, happy. Home. I'm Stephen Quinn. Sanctioned is written by Jason Proctor. Our associate producer is Stephen Jung. This episode is mixed by Jeff Walter. Teresa Duvall is our executive producer. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca.