Ottawa: Lawyers for Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou, who the US accuses of helping the of Chinese telecommunications giant dodge American sanctions on Iran, have applied to a Canadian court seeking stays in the proceedings for her extradition to America, documents revealed.
Noting that US President Donald Trump and other senior members of the administration intend to use Meng “as a bargaining chip in a trade dispute”, the CFO’s lawyers said that Trump’s stated willingness to intervene in the case is “offensive and ominous”, Xinhua news agency reported citing the documents as saying on Thursday.
The lawyers also said that the US misled Canada about the evidence in Meng’s case, calling the omission “far below the expected standard of diligence, candour and accuracy”
according to the documents
Meng, the daughter of Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei, is being sought by Washington on charges that she committed bank fraud and violated US sanctions on Iran by misleading banks about the business her company allegedly conducted in that country through a subsidiary called Skycom.
She was arrested at the request of the US on December 1, 2018, in Vancouver where she was making a stopover on a trip from Hong Kong to Mexico City.
In May, a Canadian judge declined to invalidate a request from the US for her extradition, saying that Meng’s interpretation of “the double criminality analysis would seriously limit Canada’s ability to fulfil its international obligations in the extradition context for fraud and other economic crimes”.
Last month, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau dismissed calls from former parliamentarians and diplomats to release Meng and unilaterally end her extradition process.