Huawei says former employee has right to sue company over extortion case
- Li Hongyuan alleges that he was wrongly detained for about eight months after he negotiated a severance package from the company
Li Hongyuan, 35, claimed that he was detained for 251 days from December last year and formally charged in January after he negotiated a severance package with the company.
Li, who worked for Huawei for 12 years, said his director decided not to renew his contract at the end of 2017, after he reported to company management about alleged fraud in his department in 2016, Shanghai-based Jiemian News reported on Monday.
Li said he negotiated a severance package of more than 331,000 yuan (US$47,000), and 300,000 yuan was transferred to his account through a secretary’s personal account in March 2018, according to the report.
He was taken into custody the following December and told by prosecutors in April that the charges related to “300,000 yuan extorted from Huawei”.
However, he was released in August because the prosecution concluded that “the criminal facts are unclear and the evidence is insufficient ”, according to court documents Li posted online.