A Chinese court found Canadian Michael Spavor guilty of spying and sentenced him to 11 years in prison.

A Chinese court has found Canadian Michael Spavor guilty of spying and sentenced him to 11 years in prison, putting the tense relationship between the Canadian and Chinese governments to the test. Spavor's deportation has also been ordered by the court, though it is unclear if this would occur before or after his 11-year prison sentence.

Canadian Ambassador Dominic Barton, who attended Spavor's hearing in Dandong, a coastal city near North Korea's border, believes it will take place after he serves his term. "We deplore this judgement in the harshest terms possible, following a legal procedure that lacked both fairness and openness," Barton said in a video address to diplomats and journalists assembled at the Canadian embassy.

Spavor was also found guilty of illegally disclosing national secrets to foreign governments. The verdict and sentencing are major new developments in Spavor's trip through China's court system, which Ottawa and other observers have criticized for a perceived lack of transparency.

A different Chinese court upheld the death penalty for Robert Schellenberg, a Canadian convicted of cocaine smuggling, just over 24 hours earlier. The US embassy in Beijing also decried the sentence, claiming that the proceedings against Spavor and fellow Canadian Michael Kovrig, who is accused of espionage, were an attempt to "exploit human people as bargaining leverage."