China accuses Canadian of carrying out spying missions

BEIJING — China’s Foreign Ministry said Friday that an investigation has suggested that a Canadian man charged with spying and stealing Chinese state secrets had carried out assignments for Canadian intelligence agencies.

Canada’s government said Thursday it was concerned that Kevin Garratt had been indicted and that it had raised his case with the Chinese government “at high levels.”

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said authorities found evidence “which implicates Garratt in accepting assignments from Canadian espionage agencies to gather intelligence in China.”

Garratt has been indicted by prosecutors in Dandong, a city on the North Korean border where he and his wife ran a popular coffee shop and conducted Christian aid work for North Koreans.

He and his wife Julia were arrested in August 2014 by the state security bureau. His wife was later released on bail.