Meng’s fragile health revealed
Huawei executive’s life in B.C. detailed in court affidavits
When Meng Wanzhou, who also goes by the names Sabrina, and sometimes Cathy, touched down at Vancouver International Airport on Cathay Pacific flight 838 at 11:30 a.m. on Dec. 1, she was feeling unwell.
The 12-hour layover between Hong Kong and Mexico should have been a chance to rest.
What was on her mind as she stepped off the flight is unknown. Was she anxious as she passed the cascading water feature and descended the escalators into the customs hall?
Did she suspect that authorities lay in wait for her just beyond the warm red cedar of YVR’s stately Musqueam welcome figures?
Did she choose to transit through Canada in order to avoid a possible arrest in the U.S.?
Meng had not made a trip to the U.S. since becoming aware of the U.S. criminal investigation into Huawei in April 2017, despite having been a regular visitor in 2014, 2015 and 2016, according to affidavits filed in the Supreme Court of British Columbia.
Whatever her state of mind before her arrest in Vancouver, the filings claim that Meng suffers from severe hypertension, a condition the 46-year-old mother of four states she has “struggled with for years.”
Immediately following her arrest, the Huawei executive was treated at Richmond General Hospital.
Affidavits also show Meng is a thyroid cancer survivor and has expressed concern over her health during her incarceration.
The executive also suffers from sleep apnea — for which she recently had jaw surgery.
She has difficulty eating solid food, and relies on “daily packages of medications” Meng has been prescribed.
Yet Meng’s fragile health has not held her back from performing significant duties as CFO of Huawei, one of the largest telecommunications companies in the world.
Those duties included a robust global travel schedule, using at least seven different passports issued by China and Hong Kong — and those are just the passports known to U.S. authorities, as documented in an affidavit filed by the U.S. Department of Justice.
The U.S. Department of Justice suggests Meng could have access to “numerous passport and visa documents, which could allow her to flee with greater ease.”
In his affidavits, Meng’s husband Liu Xiaozong denies that his wife has other passports. His wife, he says, travelled so frequently between 2007 and 2016 and required so many visas that “the pages in these passports for such visas were utilized, requiring the acquisition of the replacement passports.”
Other passports were “broken,” invalidated and replaced to reflect changes in her name after their marriage.
Liu believes that the only two valid passports his wife holds are from Hong Kong and the People’s Republic of China — both of which are were surrendered to the RCMP.
Meng ’s Chinese passport shows a history of international travel that would be taxing to even the healthiest individual.
Her Chinese passport issued in 2011 shows stamps from London’s Heathrow Airport, Amsterdam’s Schiphol, Paris’s Roissy CDG, in addition to stamps from Canada, Mumbai, Ghana, Russia, Japan and Myanmar, and visas issued and sealed by officials for travel to Mauritius, South Africa, Madagascar, Mali, the U.S. and Canada.
Liu describes himself as the primary caregiver to the couple’s daughter, who attended kindergarten in Vancouver. The couple married in 2007 and share one child. Meng has three sons from previous marriages. The couple owns two multimillion-dollar properties in Vancouver.
Liu, who flew to Canada a day after his wife’s arrest, includes in his affidavit evidence of the family’s ties to Canada, photographs showing his wife, their children and extended family in various beauty spots in Banff, atop Cypress Mountain, at English Bay and on Spanish Banks.
The papers show Meng became a permanent resident of Canada on April 3, 2001, a status that expired in 2009. She also has ID that includes an expired B.C. identification card, a CareCard. Meng is a diminutive 160 cm, brown eyed, and was born 13 February 1972.
Meng ’s lawyer submitted three character references, none with Vancouver connections.
Chinese business associate Sha Ye, of Chengwei Capital, said Meng worked her way up at her father’s company “step by step,” after starting as “a low-level clerk” some 25 years ago, and made a point of not publicizing her connection to the company’s founder.
Another friend, Fan Bo wrote that Meng “is a very proud person” with respect for the law who is “down to earth” despite “the enormity of her success.” Fan Bo writes that she has “many fans” in China, and is a loving mother.
A letter of support from Andrew Chase, the headmaster of Eaglebrook, a junior boarding school in Deerfield, Massachusetts, that one of her sons attended in 2013, describes Meng as a supportive parent who cared about her son’s personal growth and exhibited warmth, hospitality, kindness and care.
Meng is being detained at the Alouette Correctional Centre for Women in Maple Ridge.