After weeks of courtroom drama, curtain falls on witness phase of Meng Wanzhou extradition battle
- Canadian border and police officers have been grilled in the witness box, with one sobbing and another telling of a ‘heart-wrenching’ privacy blunder
- A statement of facts undercut the claims of a senior border officer who had denied directing staff not to create more records of Meng’s case
A dramatic phase of Meng Wanzhou’s extradition battle has been completed, with the final witness appearing after weeks of testimony about her lawyers’ claim that the Huawei Technologies executive is the victim of an abuse of process orchestrated by the American FBI.
During four weeks of testimony, Meng’s lawyers have grilled members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) who were involved in Meng’s immigration examination and arrest at Vancouver’s airport on December 1, 2018, and its extraordinary aftermath.
The witness hearings in the Supreme Court of British Columbia concluded on Monday, with a civilian RCMP IT employee who briefly testified about the police force’s email system and searches he had conducted related to Meng’s case.
But there were also moments of high drama during the witness phase, conducted in three stages since October 26. One CBSA officer sobbed as the veracity of her testimony was challenged, another described a “heart-wrenching” breach of Meng’s privacy in which her mobile device passwords were given to the RCMP, and their boss denied destroying documentation of Meng’s treatment.
RCMP Constable Winston Yep testified that he delayed arresting Meng until after her three-hour immigration exam because he did not know “what she was capable of” if he had tried to accost her aboard the plane on which she had arrived from Hong Kong.
But perhaps the most stunning moment came without a witness testifying at all, when Meng’s lead lawyer, Richard Peck, announced that retired RCMP Staff Sergeant Ben Chang – who communicated with the FBI about Meng – was refusing to appear in the case and had retained outside counsel.
Top Canadian border officer denies destroying Meng Wanzhou documents
It later emerged that after Chang left the RCMP in 2019, he moved to the Chinese gambling mecca of Macau to work as an executive at the Galaxy casino. The Post revealed that Canadian government lawyers, representing US interests in the case, feared for the safety of Chang, who worked for four years as the RCMP’s foreign liaison officer in Hong Kong.
On Monday, RCMP IT worker Jayson Allen described searching Chang’s police emails for communications with the FBI after Meng’s arrest. He found one email sent to an “fbi.gov” account.
But in cross-examination by another of Meng’s lawyers, Scott Fenton, Allen said he could not be certain whether Chang had sent other emails to the FBI by addressing the recipients in the “BCC” (blind carbon copy) field.
He also agreed that he did not search emails sent from Chang’s private Gmail address.
04:43
How the arrest of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou soured China's relations with the US and Canada
The hearing closed with the reading of a statement of facts agreed upon by both Meng’s lawyers and the Canadian government’s team that appeared to undercut the evidence provided by Roslyn MacVicar, the Pacific regional director general for the CBSA until her retirement in March.
Last week, MacVicar rejected claims that she directed staff not to create records about Meng’s case for fear that they would be publicly disclosable. CBSA agent Nicole Goodman had earlier testified that MacVicar told her in a meeting not to create a summary of Meng’s case out of concerns it might be accessed under Canada’s Access to Information and Privacy laws.
Canadian Mountie at centre of Meng case was elite officer in Hong Kong
The statement of facts read out by government lawyer John Gibb-Carsley included the recollections of the CBSA’s director of operations at Vancouver’s airport, John Linde, apparently supporting Goodman’s version of events.
“During the course of the meeting he [Linde] recalls that Ms MacVicar mentioned that additional notes should not be created and that the comment may have related to access to information (ATIP) requests,” the statement of facts says.
“He assumes that Ms MacVicar directed the comments to Chief Goodman as she had more involvement in the Meng file.”
The hearing was adjourned until December 23, when a case-management conference will be held to chart out the rest of the hearing, which is scheduled to last until May.
Meng attended Monday’s hearing by telephone. On Friday, her lawyer said Meng could not attend in person because of “a personal matter that has arisen”.
Her lawyers say that her treatment by the RCMP and CBSA was part of a covert evidence-gathering exercise conducted on behalf of American authorities, and that the US extradition request should be thrown out. They say her CBSA exam flouted the terms of the warrant that said she should have been arrested “immediately”.
The inspection included Meng being questioned about Huawei’s business dealings in Iran, the seizure of her electronic devices, and border officers obtaining the passwords to her two mobile phones.
This occurred before she was told she was going to be arrested on a US warrant and told of her rights to seek legal advice. Meng’s phone passwords ended up in the hands of the RCMP, in breach of Canada’s privacy laws.
Will Biden fix Canada’s broken ties with China?
US prosecutors want Meng, who is Huawei’s chief financial officer and the daughter of company founder Ren Zhengfei, to face trial in New York on fraud charges. They accuse her of defrauding HSBC by lying about Huawei’s business in Iran, putting the bank at risk of breaching US sanctions.
Meng’s arrest outraged Beijing and triggered a steep decline in China’s relations with Canada and the US.
Last week marked the two-year anniversary of China’s arrest of Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, who are accused by Beijing of espionage. Canada’s government regards them as hostages, taken in retaliation for Meng’s arrest.
Reports emerged this month that Meng was negotiating with the US Department of Justice to allow her to return home to China under a deferred prosecution agreement. Such agreements typically require an admission of wrongdoing and some form of cooperation in exchange for charges being dropped in the future.
The reported negotiations have not been addressed in court.
