Michael Kovrig Biography – Michael Kovrig Wiki
Michael Kovrig is a Canadian former diplomat who worked for the International Crisis Group, a transnational, pro-peace think tank. After being detained in December 2018, he was accused of espionage by the Chinese government in May 2019, and his arrest is thought by some press outlets to be retaliation for the arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou on December 1, 2018. His arrest has become a recent point of contention for Canada-China relations. From 2010 to 2016, he worked for Canada’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and was stationed in Hong Kong and Beijing from 2012-2016.
He joined the International Crisis Group in February 2017 as a senior adviser for North-East Asia. On 10 December 2018, he was detained in Beijing around the same time as Michael Spavor, a Canadian consultant with a personal relationship with Kim Jong-Un and a history of working with North Korea. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called his arrest “arbitrary”. On 21 January 2019, more than 220 prominent political and academic individuals signed a letter calling on China to release him and Spavor. In March 2020, amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, he was allowed by his captors to have a telephone conversation with his ailing father. On April 23, 2020, after 500 days of his captivity, Trudeau said consular visits for the detained Canadians were being blocked on account of the coronavirus lockdown.
He attended Royal St. George’s College in Toronto and graduated from the University of Toronto in 1994. In 2003 he graduated from Columbia University with a master’s degree in international affairs. He is fluent in Mandarin Chinese. He worked for a time after graduation at the United Nations Development Programme in New York City and in Kabul, Afghanistan.
Michael Kovrig Age
He was born on February 3, 1972, in Canada.
Michael Kovrig Wife
He is married to his wife, Vina Nadjibulla.
Michael Kovrig Family
He is the grandson of the Austrian-born industrialist Joseph Kuchar, who immigrated to Canada from Czechoslovakia in 1951 and founded the Record Chemical Company (Recochem) in Montreal. He is the older brother of his sister, Ariana Botha.
