Judge Rules Huawei CFO’s Extradition Case Can Go Forward
A decide in Canada has dominated that the U.S. extradition situation in opposition to senior Huawei Technologies executive Meng Wanzhou can proceed since the allegations in opposition to Meng constitutes a crime in Canada.
Meng, the daughter of Huawei’s founder Ren Zhengfei and main economical officer of the firm, was arrested in December 2018 at Vancouver Global Airport. She was indicted in January 2019 amid allegations that a Huawei-affiliated firm, Skycom Tech, offered telecommunications devices to Iran in violation of U.S. sanctions.
Meng was also accused of fraud for misrepresenting Huawei’s enterprise in Iran to the U.S. government and many economical establishments.
“Ms. Meng’s technique to the double criminality analysis would seriously limit Canada’s ability to fulfill its global obligations in the extradition context for fraud and other financial crimes,” Associate Chief Justice Heather Holmes, of the Supreme Court docket of British Columbia, wrote in her selection.
Judge Holmes said Canada did not have sanctions in opposition to Iran, but the financial sanctions imposed by the United States “were not basically contrary to Canadian values.”
The U.S. is looking for Meng’s extradition for prosecution in the Jap District of New York.
“Huawei is disappointed in the ruling,” the firm said in a statement. “We assume Canada’s judicial process will in the end prove Ms. Meng’s innocence.”
The Chinese Embassy in Ottawa, in a statement, said the United States and Canada had been abusing their bilateral extradition treaty and violating the legal rights of a single of its citizens.
“The purpose of the United States is to provide down Huawei and other Chinese superior-tech firms, and Canada has been performing in the system as an accomplice of the United States,” a spokesperson for the embassy said. “The whole situation is entirely a grave political incident.”
Governments in the United Kingdom, United States, and Australia have sought to limit the use of devices manufactured by Huawei in their telecoms infrastructure, arguing the company’s ties to the Chinese government posed security dangers.