Canadian officer says US never asked for Meng Wanzhou’s electronic passwords – but he took them ‘without thinking’
- Constable Gurvinder Dhaliwal of the RCMP says the border agency that provided the passcodes tried to get them back – but they had been filed with the courts
- Meng’s lawyers have depicted the illegal handover of the passcodes as part of a covert operation to gather evidence against her, orchestrated by the FBI
A Canadian police officer involved in the arrest of Huawei Technologies executive Meng Wanzhou has testified that US authorities never asked for the passwords to her electronic devices – but he still took delivery of them from a border officer on the day of Meng’s arrest.
The handover breached Canada’s privacy laws, the Supreme Court of British Columbia has previously heard. Meng’s lawyers have depicted the move as part of a covert evidence-gathering exercise, conducted on behalf of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, as they seek to have Meng’s extradition thrown out on the grounds that her rights were violated.
Meng, Huawei’s chief financial officer, was detained at Vancouver’s airport on December 1, 2018, at the request of the US, which accused her of defrauding HSBC by lying about Huawei’s business dealings in Iran – thus putting the bank at risk of breaching US sanctions there. Meng denies the charges.
Royal Canadian Mounted Police Constable Gurvinder Dhaliwal, testifying in the extradition case on Monday, said that the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) tried to rectify the blunder more than a week after Meng’s arrest, when it asked for the passcodes to be returned.
But it was too late – they had already been filed with the BC court system, Dhaliwal told Canadian government lawyer John Gibb-Carsley, representing US interests in the case.