Meng Wanzhou’s lawyer accuses Canadian border officer of fabricating testimony about phone passcodes
- Border officer Scott Kirkland engaged in ‘complete fabrication’ by saying he gave passcodes to police by accident, Meng’s lawyer says at extradition hearing
- This was part of an alleged abuse of process that should result in Meng being released, the court in Vancouver is told
Meng Wanzhou’s lawyer has accused a Canadian border agent of falsifying testimony about how the Huawei Technologies executive’s phone passwords ended up in the hands of police.
Canada Border Services Agency officer Scott Kirkland had told Meng’s extradition hearing in October that his handwritten note with the passcodes was accidentally turned over to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, in a pile of other documents, after Meng was arrested at Vancouver’s airport on December 1, 2018.
But this was a “complete fabrication”, Tony Paisana, a lawyer for Meng, said at the hearing on Thursday, as he pressed the case that it had been part of an illegal and covert effort to gather evidence against Meng on behalf of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation.
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Paisana noted that the supposed mistake had not been documented anywhere by the CBSA: “The inescapable conclusion to draw … is that BSO [Border Services Officer] Kirkland shared those passcodes not by error or by accident but on purpose.”