Canada: Officials did not act improperly in Huawei CFO arrest
VANCOUVER — There is no evidence Canadian border officials or police acted improperly when Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou was detained and arrested at Vancouver’s airport nearly 10 months ago, the Attorney General of Canada said in a court filing.
The filing was made available as Meng and her lawyers sought additional disclosures relating to the arrest in British Columbia Supreme Court in Vancouver, including contacts between U.S. and Canadian authorities. The defence claims Meng was unlawfully searched and questioned under the ruse of an immigration check and is seeking to halt extradition proceedings.
Meng, 47, was detained at Vancouver’s airport on Dec. 1 at the request of the United States, and was charged with bank fraud and accused of misleading HSBC Holdings PLC about Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd.’s business in Iran. She has said she is innocent and is fighting extradition.
The disclosure hearing is scheduled through Wednesday this week and to resume on Sept. 30 for another five days. Meng’s extradition hearing is not scheduled to start until January.
“There is no evidence that the conduct of officials, either Canadian or foreign, has compromised the fairness of the extradition proceedings,” Canada’s attorney general said through counsel in the filing.
“No purpose would be served in providing further disclosure,” the attorney general said, adding her lawyers have not shown her claims could justify halting extradition proceedings.
The defence had already been provided with extensive disclosure, the filing said, including handwritten notes from police and border officers, and video footage from the airport.
The arrest has strained China’s relations with both the United States and Canada. Shortly after the arrest, Beijing detained Michael Kovrig, a former diplomat, and Michael Spavor, a businessman, and later charged them with espionage. China has also blocked imports of Canadian canola seed and meat.
Huawei, the world’s largest telecommunications equipment maker, has been accused by the United States of activities contrary to national security or foreign policy interests. It is also a defendant in the U.S. case against Meng. Huawei denies the charges.
At Monday’s hearing before Justice Heather Holmes, Meng lawyer Richard Peck said the Canadian border agency and police delayed implementing Meng’s rights and the border agency was given an opportunity to interrogate her, with plans to share the information with the Canadian police and the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation.
“We refer to this as a ‘covert criminal investigation’ under the pretext of an admissibility examination for immigration purposes,” Peck said.
In Beijing, China’s Foreign Ministry reiterated the government’s call for Meng to be immediately released and allowed to return to China.
“The United States and Canada abused their bilateral extradition treaty and arbitrarily took coercive measures against a Chinese citizen seriously harming their lawful rights. This is a serious political case,” the ministry said in a statement sent to Reuters.
The attorney general of Canada said in the filing that the border officers acted pursuant to “lawful authority to determine whether the applicant and her goods were admissible to Canada.”
The government said there was no legal reason an arrest warrant must be executed before a person goes through immigration and customs, and that there was nothing wrong with border agency and foreign law enforcement officials sharing information about people of interest to the agency. They said Meng’s legal team was on a “fishing expedition.”
Meng, the daughter of Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei, spent 10 days in jail in December but was then released on $10 million bail and is living in one of her two multimillion-dollar homes in Vancouver.