Huawei exec faces fraud charges over Iran links
THE bail hearing in the case of Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou, arrested in Canada at the US’S request, will continue tomorrow, local media reported.
The Star Vancouver news outlet reported that the prosecution claimed Meng had committed fraud by telling Uk-based HSBC banking company that Huawei was in compliance with the US anti-iran sanctions at a meeting in 2013.
Meng, the daughter of Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei, was arrested in Vancouver last Saturday, prompting the outrage of the Chinese authorities.
She faces charges of conspiracy to defraud multiple financial institutions, which carry a possible sentence of up to 30 years jail for each charge, the court heard.
John Gibb-carsley, who represents Canada’s attorney general, said Skycom was a subsidiary of Huawei, not a separate company as claimed by the Chinese telecoms giant, and that Huawei attempted to hide its true relationship with Skycom and the company’s ties with the Iranian telecoms provider.
Meng had allegedly denied the link between Huawei and Skycom when questioned by US banks, tricking them into making transactions that violated US sanctions on Iran, Gibb-carsley said.
“This is the alleged fraud,” he said. He urged the court to deny Meng bail, saying she had vast resources and would likely flee to China, which has no extradition treaty with the US.
Meng’s defence attorney, David Martin, said wealth should not preclude any one from getting bail.
Martin said that given her prominent PEOPLE MENG Wanzhou, 46, is the daughter of Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei, a former Chinese military engineer worth $3.2 billion, according to Forbes magazine. She’s likely his heir apparent. While personal details are scant, she is married and has a son and a daughter, Huawei said. Meng, who takes her last name from her mother, received a master’s degree from Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhun, China, | status, Meng would not embarrass her father, the company or China by breaching any bail conditions.
Huawei has recently faced security concerns on the part of the US and several other countries, claiming the firm was linked to Chinese intelligence.
On Friday, Huawei dismissed claims that it threatened the security of foreign countries. | THE traditional nativity scene in St Peter’s Square won’t be so traditional this year. For the first time, it is made of sand – 720 tons of it.
The giant nativity scene (5.5m high by 16m wide) and a Christmas tree were inaugurated on Friday as part of the Vatican’s seasonal traditions.
Four sculptors known as the “Sultans of Sand”, from the US, the Netherlands, Russia and the Czech Republic, made the crib using sand from the northern Italian beach resort of Jesolo. The crib’s sand, “a poor material, recalls the simplicity, the smallness with which God revealed Himself with the birth of Jesus in the precariousness of Bethlehem,” Pope Francis said.