Michael Ching, a real estate developer in Vancouver, has overcome the latest hurdle in his battle to stay in Canada despite being wanted in China on corruption charges.
The developer had fought to stay in Canada and obtain citizenship since winning permanent residency in 1996, but charges of corruption in China have put Ching through a very rigorous process over the last several years.
Ching and his lawyers have argued that he faces fabricated charges in China and would risk imprisonment and torture had he been shipped back to the Asian country. What’s more, Ching’s lawyers have also argued that evidence against him was obtained through the torture of key witnesses, and that he would not get a fair trial in China.
As a result of a ruling by Federal Court Justice Yvan Roy, Ching will be allowed to remain in Canada while proceedings continue.
Roy ruled that Ching’s case should be sent back to a different panel of the Refugee Protection Division of Citizenship and Immigration Canada, which had previously looked at his case before it landed in Federal Court.
According to the judge, the previous panel had previously determined there were grounds to consider that Ching had committed a “serious non-political crime” in China, which would prevent him from gaining Canadian citizenship.
In his ruling, Judge Roy pointed out that Ching had never appeared before the Chinese court that found two of Ching’s acquaintances guilty of embezzlement related to a real estate transaction in Beijing.
According to a report from the Globe and Mail, Ching’s father, a Chinese Communist Party Secretary in China’s Hebei province, was expelled from the party in 2003 after a corruption investigation. Judge Roy notes it “appears” Ching, through his father, met one of the men who would go on to be convicted, and that the Chinese court found the three men had skimmed roughly $2-million from the land deal.