Revealed: Canada spy report written hours before Meng Wanzhou’s arrest predicted ‘shockwaves around the world’ once Huawei CFO was taken in
- Meng’s lawyers say the report written by the CSIS intelligence agency provides evidence of ‘coordinated state misconduct’ between the US and Canada against her
- They say the report provides a timeline for Meng’s impending arrest and is ‘troubling’ evidence that CSIS knew she would be interrogated by border officers
A secret report by Canada’s spy agency, finalised just hours before Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou’s arrest in Vancouver in 2018, describes how her impending detention would “send shockwaves around the world” and provides evidence of “coordinated state misconduct” between the US and Canada against her, according to her lawyers.
The two-page Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) report bolsters Meng’s case that she is a victim of an abuse of process, her lawyers said.
Completed the morning of Meng’s arrest on December 1, 2018, the report, according to the lawyers, says “advanced communication to the CSIS came from the [US] FBI”. Meng’s lawyers said it also provides a timeline for the forthcoming operation at Vancouver’s international airport.
“CSIS’s knowledge that Ms Meng’s arrest would not be effected until ‘approximately 16:00 Vancouver time’ is troubling, since it is consistent with CSIS knowing that the CBSA [Canada Border Security Agency] would first detain, search and interrogate Ms Meng upon her arrival at YVR [airport] at 11.30am,” her lawyers said in a newly disclosed motion.
The CSIS report makes plain that, not only was CSIS involved in communicating with the FBI and others regarding the planning of Ms Meng’s arrest … but that the CSIS had an ongoing role after the arrest
Meng’s lawyers have argued that her rights were abused when she was questioned and searched by CBSA officers before her arrest, and that this was not a normal border procedure but a covert and illicit evidence-gathering exercise conducted on behalf of the US’ Federal Bureau of Investigation.