‘Abhorrent’ remarks by Donald Trump take centre stage at Meng Wanzhou’s extradition hearing
- The Huawei executive’s lawyers say Trump made ‘intimidating’ threats to intervene in her case, reducing Meng from a human being to ‘chattel’
- They want the case extradition case thrown out as a result, but Canadian government lawyers say the argument is ‘moot’ because Trump is no longer US president
Meng’s lawyer Richard Peck said Trump had “co-opted the extradition process in an attempt to leverage Ms Meng and her extradition status”, when he said soon after her arrest that he “would certainly intervene” in her case to aid his trade war with China.
Peck called the remarks “abhorrent” and an abuse of process, that stained the Canadian justice system and the proceedings against Meng.
“These words cast a pall over these proceedings … They reduce Ms Meng from a human being to a chattel,” Peck said.
He also cast Meng’s arrest in grand terms as part of an attempt to destroy Huawei, a firm that posed “an existential threat to [US] prominence on the world stage”.
Meng’s lawyers had earlier said in a written submission: “Where the Requesting State engages in conduct that offends our Canadian sense of fair play and decency, the Court must intervene to safeguard the integrity of the judicial process. This is such a case.”