Canada border officer ‘can’t recall’ who wanted Meng Wanzhou’s electronic device passwords
- The police later obtained the passwords, but Sowmith Katragadda said this was ‘absolutely not’ his intention
- Meng’s lawyers say that her devices and passwords were seized in an evidence-gathering exercise orchestrated by the FBI, and that Katragadda was a police proxy
The Canadian border officer in charge of Meng Wanzhou’s questioning on the day of her arrest testified on Thursday that he could not recall who came up with the idea to obtain the passwords to the Huawei executive’s electronic devices, which later ended up in the hands of police.
Canada Border Services Agency officer Sowmith Katragadda said it was he who conveyed the request to a CBSA colleague, who then gave them to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer who arrested Meng at Vancouver’s airport on December 1, 2018. But this was a mistake and “absolutely not” Katragadda’s intention, he said.
Meng’s lawyers say that the border agency’s examination was a covert evidence-gathering exercise orchestrated by the FBI to help the US prosecution of Meng, the chief financial officer for Huawei Technologies and the daughter of company founder Ren Zhengfei.
Meng was not told she was about to be arrested when she handed over the devices and passwords and answered the CBSA’s questions, which her lawyers say violated her Canadian rights.
The handover of the passwords did breach Canada’s privacy laws, but this was a “heartbreaking” mistake, Katragadda’s colleague Scott Kirkland testified last month.
01:21
Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou’s extradition hearings begin
Katragadda questioned Meng at Vancouver’s airport in the three hours between when she landed on a Cathay Pacific flight from Hong Kong and when she was arrested by the RCMP, acting on a US warrant.