Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Huawei has asked a Canadian court to quash extradition to the US case brought against her because it allegedly abused court processes.
Wanzhou is accused of involvement in alleged bank fraud. The US claims that Meng defrauded HSBC by lying about Huawei’s business in Iran, allegedly in breach of US sanctions and that she should be sent to New York to face trial.
Lawyers to Wanzhou told the Canadian court on Monday, that authorities in the US misled British Columbia’s Supreme Court about a 2013 PowerPoint presentation Meng gave to a HSBC banker forming the basis of the US fraud case.
“Ms. Meng will submit that the Requesting State’s summary of evidence is grossly inaccurate and based on deliberate and/or reckless misstatements of fact and material omissions, thereby constituting a serious abuse of the extradition process that should disentitle the Requesting State to proceed,” her lawyers said in a memo, released on Monday by the Supreme Court of British Columbia.
Meng was arrested by Canadian police, acting on a US request, at Vancouver’s airport on December 1, 2018, throwing China’s relations with Canada and the US into turmoil.
The new claims also allege that the US falsely asserted that only junior HSBC sta were aware of the nature of Huawei’s relationship with Skycom, a company in Iran that the US says conducted business there on behalf of Huawei.
“Evidence will demonstrate that it is inconceivable that any decision to modify or terminate HSBC’s relationship with Skycom or Huawei would not have been reviewed by the most senior management of HSBC,” said the memo.
