Former RCMP officer William Majcher has been found not guilty of acting on behalf of China in its pursuit of a white-collar fugitive living in Metro Vancouver.

B.C. Supreme Court Justice Martha Devlin read her reasons for her decision Wednesday morning in downtown Vancouver, noting the prosecution’s case hinged on a single e-mail chain between Mr. Majcher and a colleague that did not prove beyond a reasonable doubt he had taken concrete steps to help Chinese police prepare to coerce Hongwei (Kevin) Sun in the spring of 2017.

Mr. Majcher, who retired from one of the RCMP’s regional financial crime units 20 years ago to begin working as a private financial investigator in Hong Kong, had pleaded not guilty to a single charge of violating Canada’s Security of Information Act. The Crown alleges he helped Chinese police prepare to threaten Mr. Sun, a Vancouver-area real estate investor accused of a massive fraud in China.

Mr. Majcher’s arrest made headlines worldwide and came amid a national debate on Chinese government interference in Canada, and as the country’s intelligence services faced pressure to show they were addressing the issue.