Canadian officer accused of spying for China acquitted of charges

A retired police officer Canada accused of being an agent for China has been acquitted of national security charges after prosecutors failed to prove he acted illegally. William Majcher, who served in the RCMP’s financial crime unit, was charged in 2023 over allegations he had breached Canada’s Security of Information Act by helping Chinese police coerce a Vancouver-area real estate investor, accused of fraud, to return to China. On Wednesday, Martha Devlin, a British Columbia supreme court justice, found Majcher was not guilty of a charge under Canada’s Security of Information Act. Devlin said the crown, which brought a rarely used charge against Majcher had “failed to meet its burden” in this case. The closely watched case came amid fears that China was interfering in Canadian elections and operating clandestine “police stations” throughout the country to threaten dissidents. Majcher, who lives in Hong Kong and works as a private financial and cybersecurity investigator, was arrested in Vancouver in 2023. At the time, police alleged he “used his knowledge and his extensive network of contacts in Canada to obtain intelligence or services to benefit the People’s Republic of China”. But the case unspooled at trial, with the crown unable to convince a judge that anything illegal occurred. Devlin said she found evidence by prosecutors was “entirely circumstantial” and that the arrest by the RCMP appeared to be based on a “hunch or generalized suspicion”. …