Canada court rejects Meng Wanzhou’s bid to see documents about arrest that officials fear could damage ties with China
- In a blow to the Huawei executive, a Federal Court judge has ruled that six spy agency documents will remain redacted
- Meng’s lawyers, fighting a US bid for her extradition, wanted to see the full documents to bolster their claim that she is the victim of an abuse of process
Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou has lost a court bid to see unredacted Canadian spy agency documents related to her arrest. Government lawyers had argued that they should be withheld on national security grounds and had the potential to damage Canada’s relations with China.
Lawyers for Meng, who is fighting a request by the United States to have her extradited from Vancouver to face fraud charges in New York, had sought the six unaltered documents from Canada’s Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) to bolster her claim that her arrest was an abuse of process.
But in a Canadian Federal Court ruling that was made on Friday and released on Tuesday, Justice Catherine Kane said “there is no further information in the CSIS documents that is relevant to the abuse of process as claimed by Ms Meng”.
“If any of the redacted information were marginally relevant – which it is not – the court would find that its disclosure would be injurious [to the public interest],” she wrote.
Lawyers for the attorney general of Canada, who are representing US interests in Meng’s battle against extradition, had agreed to lift some of previous redactions and provide short summaries of others.