Huawei Technologies Co (華為) chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou (孟晚舟) is to get access to documents detailing the circumstances of her arrest in Canada at the request of the US, where she is sought on wire fraud and conspiracy charges.
Meng claims she needs the documents to show there was an abuse of process in her fight against the extradition.
Associate Chief Justice Heather Holmes of the Supreme Court of British Columbia on Tuesday ordered the Canadian government, police and border agency to provide Meng’s defense with records about the planning and execution of her arrest at Vancouver’s airport on Dec. 1 last year.
Photo: Reuters
Among the disclosures sought by her defense are: records of meetings and telephone calls to coordinate her arrest; dates that were sent to the FBI and the Canadian Department of Justice during her arrest; what information was shared while she was being questioned by border officials; and correspondence between Canadian and US law enforcement from Nov. 28 to Dec. 5 last year.
During a two-week stretch of hearings that ended in early October, Meng’s lawyers had exposed cracks in the way Canada handled her arrest — including an admission from border officials that they “in error” shared her device passwords with police — putting the prosecution on the back foot.
Her defense alleges that the Canada Border Services Agency, police and FBI unlawfully used the pretext of an immigration check to get Meng to disclose evidence that could be used against her.
In the ruling, Holmes said the order “does not predict or imply that Ms Meng’s claim of abuse of process will ultimately succeed.”
She said it is also not clear whether the alleged abuse, if proven, would be serious enough to require a stay of proceedings.
Such a stay is only granted “in the rarest of cases,” she said. “However, I cannot rule out the possibility that it would.”
The ruling also supported some arguments from Meng’s defense that there have been notable gaps in the evidence provided so far.
“I view the evidence tendered by the attorney general to address those gaps as strategic in its character yet impoverished in its substance,” the judge said, adding that Canada has left “largely unexplained” why border officials turned over Meng’s passwords to the police, contrary to law, and when and how the mistake came to light.
Meng’s defense has inferred that Canadian police sent details about Meng’s devices to the FBI. The prosecution has been “similarly incomplete” in rebutting those inferences, Holmes wrote.
“This specific and notable feature of the evidence, considered in light of the body of evidence as a whole, raises questions beyond the frivolous or speculative about the chain of events,” the judge said.
For Meng, the victory is the first step in what is likely to be a long battle with the odds stacked against her. Of the 798 US extradition requests received since 2008, Canada has only refused or discharged eight, the Canadian Department of Justice said.
Meng is set to appear in court on Jan. 20 for the formal start of extradition hearings.
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