Huawei Technologies CFO Meng Wanzhou was arrested in Vancouver in December 2018. US officials accuse him of misleading HSBC about the nature of Huawei’s relationship with Skycom, an indirect subsidiary that was doing business in Iran in violation of US sanctions.
Huawei Technologies Co. CFO Meng Wanzhou is set to spend a few more months under house arrest in her fight to avoid extradition from Canada to New York in a criminal case that has strained relations American-Chinese.
As the case has dragged on for more than two years, his lawyers on Monday asked the BC Supreme Court to stay the proceedings until August to give them time to review documents from Huawei’s bank. , HSBC Bank Plc, which have just been published. by order of a court in Hong Kong.
These documents “could be of great value to the final decision in this case,” Meng’s lawyer Richard Peck said in court. “We have all worked hard and efficiently to present a complex case to you, but now we are coming to this point where we need a little time.”
Peck also argued it was a “good time” for a postponement, as British Columbia and Ontario, where lawyers on both sides reside, are currently hot spots in the third wave of the coronavirus pandemic. .
Prosecutors urged Associate Chief Justice Heather Holmes to dismiss the delay request, saying the defense team did not know what was in the documents or when they would all arrive. “They are once again calling for this tribunal to become a trial court,” said Canadian government lawyer Robert Frater.
Meng was arrested in Vancouver in December 2018 while changing planes en route from Hong Kong to Mexico. U.S. officials accuse him of fraudulently deceiving HSBC about the nature of Huawei’s relationship with Skycom, an indirect subsidiary that did business in Iran in violation of U.S. sanctions.
Meng’s legal team divided their arguments for rejecting the extradition request into four branches.
Three have already been presented: that the due process in the case had been disrupted by political maneuvering, that Canadian authorities abused Meng’s detention process, and that the United States lacked jurisdiction to bring the claim in court. first place.
The final round of argument, which was previously scheduled to begin on April 26, revolved around whether US officials misled their Canadian counterparts in the request.
