"Finally, we came to the promise."
The words of the Chief Attorney of the Canadian Ministry of Justice, Robert Frater, began the final phase of the extradition saga of the Chinese fraud suspect Meng Wanzhou-984 days before the Canadian police arrested Huawei's chief financial officer at Vancouver International Airport.
Meng Wanzhou’s Hong Kong passport (produced by BC Courts)
On August 11, after a Canadian hostage Michael Spavor was sentenced to 11 years in prison in retaliation for Meng’s arrest in a court in Dandong, China, Flatt held a hearing at the Deputy Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of British Columbia in Vancouver on August 11. Thur Holmes appeared in court.
The focus of the controversy is that the United States tried to try Meng Wanzhou in New York and asked her to meet with HSBC in Hong Kong in August 2013. The United States claims that Meng misled bankers on the issue of Huawei’s subsidiary SkyCom in order to conduct business in Iran, which runs counter to US sanctions.
Flatt said that Meng Wanzhou’s statement to HSBC was “dishonest because she said something and because she didn’t say anything”.
He told the court that Meng did not disclose the truth about Huawei's control of SkyCom and misled HSBC.
Robert Frater (Government of Canada)
"Multiple sclerosis. Meng is loyal to Huawei's script that SkyCom is a third-party partner of Huawei and HSBC continues to provide banking services to Huawei without the risk of violating sanctions," Flatt said.
"When you send the CFO to try to convince the bankers that there is no risk, this undoubtedly sends a message to them."
Frette said that there is no financial loss to establish fraud-only dishonesty and deprivation.
Frette said that although Meng's defense team aimed to try the case before Holmes, the extradition hearing is not a trial. They are expedited procedures to determine whether a trial should be held. He told Holmes that her job was to determine whether the case complied with Canadian extradition law, not to assess "the quality, credibility, or reliability of the case, except in a very limited sense."
Two Canadians named Michael were taken hostage in China (McGinn)
Meng was arrested after taking off from Hong Kong on December 1, 2018. She originally planned to travel to Mexico City on the same day after a short detour to deliver some items to one of her two houses in Vancouver.
She came to one of the houses on December 11, 2018, the day she was released on bail. Since May 2019, she has lived in a mansion on the same block as the US Consul General's residence.
Her arrest triggered a diplomatic rift between Canada and China. On the same day Meng was released on bail in Vancouver, businessman Spavor and former diplomat Kang Mingkai were arrested in China. Kovrig is awaiting his verdict on similar espionage charges. The Chinese government did not release any evidence and refused diplomats and journalists to enter their trial.
In court hearings held in Vancouver in the past two years, Meng’s legal team claimed that she was the victim of a politically motivated prosecution in the US-China trade war. They also claimed that Canadian police violated her rights when she was arrested.
In May 2020, Holmes ruled that the U.S. extradition application can proceed because the similarities in Canadian fraud laws are known as the dual criminality principle.
The extradition hearing is expected to end on August 20, and Holmes is expected to keep her decision until a later date.
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