Huawei executive accuses Canada of destroying compromising evidence

A Huawei executive threatened with extradition to the United States on Thursday accused Canada of “destroying evidence” by deleting emails and texts from a former police officer who participated in his arrest in late 2018 in Vancouver .

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Lawyers for Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of Chinese telecoms giant Huawei, have been trying for months to prove that his rights were violated during his arrest, hoping to derail the extradition process to the United States, which must be completed in mid-May.

M^me Meng was arrested on 1^is December 2018 at Vancouver Airport at the request of the United States. The American justice accuses him of having circumvented the American sanctions against Iran by lying to the HSBC Bank about the links between Huawei and a subsidiary which did business in this country.

In new documents unveiled at the Vancouver court on Thursday, lawyers for Mr.^me Meng claimed that Canada violated their client’s rights by erasing emails, texts and documents from the computer of Sergeant Ben Chang, who had participated in the arrest of Mr.^me Meng, after leaving the Canadian Federal Police in 2019.

They suspect that Mr. Chang then sent the US FBI an email illegally containing the passwords for his electronic devices confiscated at the airport, which the prosecutor’s representative denies.

“There is no evidence that the RCMP [police fédérale canadienne] and the CBSA [agence des services frontaliers du Canada] proceeded to a systematic destruction of evidence ”, reacted the public prosecutor.

Mr. Chang, questioned under oath, denied having transmitted this confidential information to the US federal police. However, he refused to testify in person before the Vancouver judge, an attitude “indefensible”, according to the defense of Mr.^me Meng.

Mona Duckett, one of the defense attorneys, reaffirmed Thursday that Canadian customs and police have no legal reason to obtain passwords to phones and other electronic devices from Meng Wanzhou.

They did so, according to them, illegally to allow the FBI to gather compromising information, which in their view should result in the cancellation of the entire procedure.

Relations between Ottawa and Beijing are going through an unprecedented crisis since the arrest in China of former Canadian diplomat Michael Kovrig and his compatriot Michael Spavor, accused of espionage, a few days after that of Meng Wanzhou.

The two Canadians are due to be tried in China from Friday for Mr. Spavor, and from Monday for Mr. Kovrig.

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