ExclusiveCanadian Mountie at centre of Meng Wanzhou extradition storm was elite officer in Hong Kong
- Ben Chang, a retired staff sergeant of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, is a key figure in Meng’s case but is refusing to testify
- Chang, now an executive at a Macau casino, was the RCMP liaison officer in Hong Kong for four years
The Canadian Mountie cut an eye-catching figure, his red serge tunic standing out among the ranks of white tombstones at Hong Kong’s Sai Wan War Cemetery.
The annual ceremony to remember the sacrifices made by Canadian troops in the 1941 battle of Hong Kong is a solemn affair. But the Chinese Canadian officer who stood with his head bowed before the cenotaph at the service on December 3, 2017, was a popular presence, mingling afterward with guests who included Kathleen Wynne, then the premier of Ontario, and posing for photographs with veterans and their families.
The man in scarlet was Royal Canadian Mounted Police Staff Sergeant Ben Chang.
He is once again the centre of attention – but for very different reasons.
Chang has been cast as a key figure in the Canadian extradition case of Huawei Technologies executive Meng Wanzhou, and central to her lawyers’ claim that she is the victim of covert evidence-gathering orchestrated by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation. Tuesday marks the second anniversary of Meng’s arrest at Vancouver’s airport that threw China’s relations with Canada into turmoil.
Notes taken by a police colleague suggest that Chang sent information about Meng’s cellphones and electronic devices to the FBI, although the Canadian government lawyers representing the US deny this. In a sworn affidavit, Chang also denies the handover.