Crown abruptly closes case in B.C. trial of ex-Mountie accused of security offence

VANCOUVER — The trial of a former RCMP officer accused of a security offence in relation to his alleged work for the Chinese government was abruptly adjourned Wednesday as prosecutors closed their case, catching defence lawyers by surprise.

William Majcher pleaded not guilty to one count of committing “preparatory acts” for an offence under Canada’s Security of Information Act as the trial got underway in British Columbia Supreme Court in Vancouver on Monday.

The prosecution alleges Majcher had prepared to coerce B.C. resident Hongwei Sun, also known as Kevin Sun, into returning to China, where he was wanted for financial crimes, for the benefit or at the direction of the Chinese government.

The Crown was expected to call another witness, Kenneth Marsh, another former RCMP officer who knew Majcher, but prosecutor Charles Hough instead told Justice Martha Devlin they were closing their case on the third day of the trial.

Defence lawyer Ian Donaldson told Devlin he was caught by surprise and asked for the hearing to be adjourned until Thursday, a request she granted.

Donaldson said shortly after the hearing began Wednesday that he only learned the Crown would not be calling Marsh as a witness “within the last hour.” He asked for the adjournment to allow time for the defence to “process” the shift in the case.

“It’s a very different case now than I was expecting it was going to be,” he said.

Testimony earlier this week had revealed details about the extent and limits of RCMP co-operation with Chinese counterparts, as well as an incident in 2018 when three Chinese officers on an RCMP-escorted visit to Vancouver went missing for six hours.

That triggered border safeguards amid fears the officers could be trying to illicitly repatriate someone, a former RCMP liaison officer in China told the hearing.

A ruling by the same court earlier this month said the Crown’s “central piece of evidence” at the trial would be an email Majcher sent to an associate in June 2017.

The April 1 ruling includes what it calls the most pertinent passages of the email, which related to an effort to recover proceeds from a fraud allegedly committed in China by someone who had become a real estate mogul in Vancouver.

“The Chinese police have opened a task force and standing by to issue a global arrest warrant,” the email said, according to the court ruling.

“I hope to have a copy of the warrant before it is issued so we can impress upon the crook that we hold the keys to his future,” it said, adding “the Chinese want to use this as a precedent case to settle economic crimes quietly and expeditiously.”

The ruling said the Crown intended to use Marsh’s testimony to establish that Majcher’s description of the “crook” was consistent with information Marsh had gathered about Sun as part of his work as a private investigator.

“The Crown also expects to elicit evidence from Mr. Marsh that he promoted Mr. Sun to Mr. Majcher as someone that (China) should target,” it said.

Majcher had moved to Hong Kong following his retirement from policing. The same ruling said the Crown intended to bring forward additional evidence to his trial that would establish the nature of his “asset recovery” business based there.

The ruling includes a further email in which Majcher apparently wrote that if the unnamed “target” co-operated, he hoped to settle the matter within a few weeks.

“If he fights then (there) will be extradition request and lengthier process but we feel he is motivated to co-operate as we can guarantee him his passport and no jail time.”

The trial previously heard Chinese police sought the RCMP’s help to arrest Sun, accusing him of defrauding a Chinese state bank in the late 1990s or early 2000s.

But RCMP Supt. Peter Tsui testified Monday that the Mounties didn’t receive enough information about the case to make a determination.

He said Chinese authorities then “changed their tactic” and asked if they could speak to Sun, prompting a request to federal Mounties in Vancouver to find him.

Sun refused to attend a meeting, indicating Chinese authorities “couldn’t touch him” in Canada, and the Mounties concluded their assistance in the case, Tsui said.

He said Chinese authorities later indicated Sun may have been negotiating for a new passport, as his had expired, and he couldn’t travel.

Majcher’s trial had initially been scheduled to last three weeks, before he opted for a judge-alone trial rather than a jury trial.

It follows a B.C. Supreme Court ruling that Majcher’s warrantless arrest at Vancouver’s airport in 2023 was unconstitutional.

In the ruling dated March 26, Devlin found the grounds for his arrest amounted “only to a hunch or generalized suspicion” that he engaged in a conspiracy to assist China’s efforts in a manner that would contravene Canadian law.

It said the RCMP began investigating Majcher in 2021, with the probe focusing on whether he was facilitating the efforts of the Chinese government to target Chinese nationals in Canada for repatriation as part of anticorruption operations.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 22, 2026.

Brenna Owen, The Canadian Press