‘Error but not a sham’: Canada border officers gave Meng Wanzhou’s passwords to police by mistake, government lawyer claims
- Meng’s legal team previously said the transfer of the passwords to her electronic devices showed that her rights had been abused
- But the transfer is depicted as an error in an email – dated Monday – that was disclosed by the crown lawyers on Tuesday
Lawyers for Canada’s government said in court on Tuesday that border officers handed over the passwords of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou’s electronic devices to police by mistake, but that steps were taken to try to remedy the supposed error.
Meng’s lawyers have previously depicted the transfer of the phone and computer passwords as evidence of a “covert criminal investigation” by Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) officers, conducted on behalf of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
Her lawyers said a court order that Meng be “immediately” arrested was defied so that the search of Meng at Vancouver’s airport on December 1 could be conducted to gather evidence – including the electronics and passwords – for the US criminal case against her. The US wants Meng extradited to face trial for alleged bank fraud related to Huawei’s business dealings in Iran.
“This was not a deliberate action but an error,” said Canadian government lawyer Diba Majzub, acting on behalf of the US, at a hearing on evidence disclosure for Meng’s extradition case in the British Columbia Supreme Court in Vancouver.
Meng’s legal team has said the sharing of the passwords showed that her rights had been abused. But Majzub said this was only a mistake, and was described as such in an email written by a CBSA officer that Majzub provided to the court.
He said that the CBSA took the appropriate step of asking for the passwords to be returned, but that the RCMP had also responded correctly when it said this was not possible – because by that time, the passwords had already been entered into the court record of Meng’s case.