Huawei finance chief struck blow in US extradition trial
Huawei’s finance chief Meng Wanzhou was tonight dealt a blow in her bid to avoid extradition to the US after a Canadian court ruled against her.
A judge found that the case against Wanzhou, who has been accused of bank fraud by US authorities, meets the threshold of double criminality – meaning the charges are crimes in both the US and Canada.
As a result of the ruling, the trial against Wanzhou, who was arrested in December 2018, can go ahead.
Wanzhou is accused of fraud for misleading HSBC about Huawei’s relationship with a company operating in Iran, putting HSBC at risk of fines and penalties for breaking US sanctions on Tehran.
Meng’s lawyers argued the case should be thrown out because Canada did not have sanctions against Iran.
However, chief justice Heather Holmes disagreed, ruling that the standard of double criminality had been met.
The ruling paves the way for the extradition hearing to proceed to the second phase starting June, examining whether Canadian officials followed the law while arresting Meng.
A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said that Canada “should immediately correct its mistake, release Ms Meng and ensure her safe return to China at an early date so as to avoid any continuous harm to China-Canada relations”.
The decision comes after the US slapped further sanctions on the telecoms firm, while Britain announced a security review into its involvement with the building of the UK’s 5G networks.
The review comes after the Telegraph last week reported that Boris Johnson intended to reduce the Chinese state-owned firm’s involvement in Britain’s 5G network in the wake of the pandemic.
Johnson has reportedly instructed officials to draw up plans that would reduce China’s involvement to zero by 2023.