Canada says alleged Trump interference in extradition case of Huawei's Meng 'moot'
OTTAWA - Canada’s attorney general says accusations that former U.S. President Donald Trump’s interfered in Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou’s extradition trial is irrelevant because he is no longer in office.
Meng is facing charges of bank fraud in the United States
over misleading HSBC about Huawei’s business dealings in Iran, causing the bank
to violate U.S. sanctions.
She has been under house arrest in Vancouver, Canada, since
her arrest at the airport there in December 2018 and is fighting extradition in
the British Columbia Supreme Court.
In an interview with Reuters 10 days after Meng’s arrest,
Trump said he would intervene in the Justice Department’s case against Meng if
it served national security interests or helped close a trade deal with China.
Meng’s lawyers have argued that Trump’s statements
compromised the fairness of the extradition proceedings.
Canadian lawyers said in documents filed ahead of hearings
scheduled for next month that such an argument was “moot”.
“The facts on which it is based – statements by a president
no longer in office, about a possible intervention in this case that never occurred,
purportedly to achieve a trade deal that has long since been successfully
negotiated – have no past, present or prospective impact on these proceedings.”
A Huawei spokesman had no immediate comment.
Meng’s arrest caused tensions between Beijing and Ottawa,
and soon afterward, China detained two Canadians, who continue to have limited
access to legal counsel or diplomatic officials.
Meng is set to next appear in court on March 1 for the last
stage of her extradition hearings, which are scheduled to finish in May. There
is an administrative hearing for her case on Friday.
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