HSBC : Canada refuses to release emails with U.S. over Huawei executive's arrest
Canada has released as much information as it legally can about the arrest of Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou, the government's lawyers said on Monday, as she sought more confidential documents relating to her 2018 detention.
Meng, 48, was arrested in December 2018 at Vancouver
International Airport on a U.S. warrant charging her with bank fraud for
allegedly misleading HSBC about Huawei's business dealings in Iran.
She has said she is innocent, and is fighting extradition to
the United States while under house arrest in Vancouver.
On the first day of hearings expected to last up to three
days, Meng's lawyer said a "flurry of emails" between Canadian and
American officials around the time of Meng's arrest should not all be covered
by privilege, as Canadian prosecutors have argued.
Meng's lawyers have pushed for the release of more documents
to support their assertion that Canadian and American authorities committed
abuses of process while questioning Meng before her arrest, including the
improper sharing of identifying details about her electronic devices.
Crown lawyer John Gibb-Carsley said his team is committed to
making the trial "as open as possible without divulging the privileges
which need to be protected."
However, Meng's lawyers argued that abuse of process is an
exception to litigation privilege.
"We see a flurry of emails around the subject
matter," Scott Fenton, a lawyer for Meng, said. "We would be easily
guilty of being wrong that all these emails are about that subject matter
because we can't see them, so it's a matter for the closed hearing to determine
what these are about."
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police have denied any abuses
relating to their conduct during Meng's arrest.
Several of the privilege claims were litigated in a federal
court in Ottawa in late July, because they were made on the basis of national
security.
The hearings will continue in a closed session on Tuesday,
potentially stretching into Wednesday. Meng will not be present.
A schedule proposed jointly by lawyers for the prosecution
and defense said that a decision on the issue by Oct. 2 would allow the rest of
the trial to proceed as planned, with hearings wrapping up in April 2021.
Comments
Post a Comment