'From hell to limbo': Michael Kovrig describes more than a thousand days as China's prisoner

On the evening of December 10, 2018, Michael Kovrig was out for dinner in Beijing with his six-months-pregnant partner, unaware it was the last time he'd enjoy her company for more than two and a half years.

Strolling home, the couple climbed a spiral staircase in front of his apartment building.

"And boom … I come out of the stairs and there's a dozen men in black, cameras on them, dressed identically, but no … markings, no badges, no nothing, surrounding us, shouting in Chinese, 'That's him,'" he told CBC News Chief Correspondent Adrienne Arsenault in an exclusive interview airing Monday.

He said a woman stepped forward and held up a piece of paper he wasn't given a chance to read.

"Apparently in Chinese it had a warrant for my arrest on it," he said. "They grabbed me. They grabbed my phone so I couldn't make a call. They pinned my arms."

The men pulled his partner away from him. His number one concern, he said, was her safety and the safety of their unborn child.

Kovrig said the men pushed him toward three black SUVs parked nearby. He was shoved into a back seat between two men in black. They slipped a blindfold over his face and cuffed his hands.

"Most of us, fortunately, don't have to experience what it's like being handcuffed. It's right away imposing another identity on you … my mind went very quiet," he said.

Looking down, he could just make out his watch. For 45 minutes he counted turns — right, then right again — and calculated he was headed somewhere in South Beijing.

The car eventually slowed, he heard the crunch of gravel under the tires, a gate opening and dogs barking. A few minutes later, he was taken out of the car and into an underground parking garage, then into an elevator and eventually an office. 

They sat him in a hard chair and pulled the blindfold away. When his eyes adjusted to the light, he saw an elderly Chinese man sitting across from him wearing thick glasses.

"I'm trying to control myself and not panic … I decided very quickly that there was no benefit to … shouting, screaming, any of that … so I asked what this was all about," Kovrig told CBC News.

He was told that he was under suspicion of endangering China's state security and that he would be interrogated.

"A chill went down my spine," he said. "That was not a good moment."