Lawyers for Meng Wanzhou on Wednesday accused Canadian authorities of misinterpreting the law to justify border officers’ search and questioning of the Huawei executive before her December 1 arrest, saying it should have been a “foregone conclusion” that she would be admitted to Canada. The lawyers continued to argue in a Vancouver court that Meng had been the victim of an abuse of process by Canadian authorities when they arrested her on behalf of the US, that the immigration examination was a pretext to gather evidence for the American case against her, and that more documents relating to the arrest should be released amid her high-stakes extradition battle. Meng, 47, the daughter of Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei, was arrested at Vancouver’s airport almost 10 months ago during a stopover on her way from Hong Kong to Mexico. The US wants Meng to face trial for allegedly defrauding HSBC by misleading the bank about Huawei’s business dealings in Iran. “The attorney general’s submissions ignore the practical reality [that] it was a foregone conclusion that [Meng] was entering Canada,” said Scott Fenton, one of Meng’s lawyers. Meng, a former permanent resident of Canada, visited the country more than 50 times over the past decade, including six times in 2018 before her arrest, immigration records provided to the court show. Wednesday was the third day of a scheduled eight-day hearing on evidence disclosure. The formal extradition hearing is scheduled to begin in the British Columbia Supreme Court in January and last until October or November 2020. In brief remarks opposing the motion for further disclosures that are sought by Meng’s team, Robert Frater, a Canadian government lawyer representing the US in the case, said Meng’s lawyers had “not established an ‘air of reality’ about anything”. He was referring to the threshold for Justice Heather Holmes to approve the request for additional disclosure. China asks for Huawei exec’s ‘immediate release’ as Canada appoints new envoy Fenton said border officers were wrong to search Meng and seize her electronic devices despite knowing that there was a court order requiring that she be arrested “immediately”. “There was no need for the [Canadian Border Services Agency] to conduct an admissibility [examination] … based on the information that they knew in advance [that she was subject to a US warrant] there was no need for any form of examination.” “The provisional arrest warrant took precedence over any immigration-related concerns,” said Fenton. “The CBSA officers were effectively performing a form of criminal investigation … instead of a bona-fide immigration examination.” Fenton said that, in any case, Meng’s immigration exam was never completed. “It remains deferred 10 months later,” he said. “In no universe of possibilities was Ms Meng ever going to be turned away [because this would] frustrate the arrest of Ms Meng,” said Fenton. “To send her back to Hong Kong … would have been unheard of [and] absurd.” Fenton said that the CBSA officers’ notes about Meng’s immigration exam were inadequate and that a sworn statement by officer Scott Kirkland about having seized and bagged Meng’s phones was “clearly misleading” because it omitted that he had been asked to do so by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Meng’s lawyers say Canadian border officers improperly delayed the executive’s arrest at the airport by three hours to conduct a “covert criminal investigation” into her at the request of the US FBI and the RCMP. Chinese immigration applications to Canada plunge In that time, they said, CBSA agents questioned Meng about Huawei’s Iran business, seized her electronic devices and “compelled” her to hand over their passwords. Said Fenton: “The actions the CBSA undertook, in searching and releasing the applicant show that [the arrest warrant] took precedence … the CBSA suspended their examination at 2.11pm and the first thing they did was give away [to the RCMP] the electronics and passwords they obtained.” He asked rhetorically why this would occur if the seizure was part of a bona-fide immigration examination. The seizure, instead, “was ultimately for the benefit of the FBI”, he said. Fenton also said there were indications of an attempt by the CBSA to “recast the events after the fact”. He pointed to “troubling” handwritten notes of a CBSA meeting that said: “Don’t suggest at any point that RCMP was leader” and “explain that surrendering phone request is normal, she did this voluntarily.” He said the undated notes, taken by an unidentified person at the CBSA, were likely made some time in December 2018. A claim by another CBSA officer, Sowsmith Katragadda, that it was he who decided that Meng should be subjected to a search when he encountered her, after she disembarked from a Cathay Pacific flight, was not true, said Fenton. “It was preordained that that would happen. She was targeted,” said Fenton. “To say that he made the decision at the time is, respectfully, false.” He called Katragadda’s statements “actively misleading” and “unacceptable”. Fenton submitted to the court a list of more documents being sought by Meng’s team. These included all documents relating to coordination between RCMP and CBSA officers on November 30, the day before the arrest; communications involving the Canadian Department of Justice and the FBI; and notes about the CBSA strategising the handling of Meng’s case. In closing submissions by Meng’s team, Fenton said there was “strong evidence” that Meng was “tricked and she was unfairly … deprived of her constitutional rights”. “There is an ‘air of reality’ that there was a misuse of the CBSA's extraordinary powers,” Fenton said. At midafternoon, the hearing was adjourned until Monday, when lawyers for Canada’s attorney general, representing the US, will further their case opposing the disclosure request. Canada sends delegation to China to press for release of detained citizens They deny that an abuse of process occurred and say they have fulfilled their disclosure obligations. On Wednesday, Meng was dressed in a striped shirt and blue trousers, in contrast to the flashy designer outfits she wore at the first two days of the hearing. Meng’s case has been a flashpoint in US-China relation s, with US President Donald Trump suggesting he might intervene if it helped in the ongoing trade war. Her arrest also sent China-Canada relations plunging. Two Canadians, Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig, have been charged with espionage in China in a move widely seen in Canada as retribution for Meng’s arrest. Meng, who was once a Canadian permanent resident, is currently free on bail, living in a C$13 million (US$9.8 million) home that is one of two properties she owns in Vancouver.