The attorney of Huawei executive, Meng Wanzhou has said that his client was “deceived” by a Canadian police officer during her arrest in 2018 so that she wouldn’t call a lawyer.
Meng, Huawei’s Chief Financial Officer, was arrested on December 1, 2018 at Vancouver airport by Canadian authorities that acted on a US warrant.
After her arrest, she has been fighting extradition to the United States, where she is facing fraud charges connected to the company’s activities in Iran in breach of United States sanctions.
Her lawyers have attempted to thwart the extradition procedure by presenting an argument that Meng’s rights were violated during her arrest. Canada has denied the argument. November’s hearings have heard from police and customs officers that were involved in her arrest.
The defense have made it known that the daughter of the Huawei founder was queried for three hours without her lawyer and she was not told why she was being queried and had to give custom officials the passwords to her electronic devices. The custom officers who passed the passwords on to Canadian federal police.
On getting the passwords, police forwarded them to US Federal Bureau of Investigation agents, according to the defense, which condemned the “collusion” between the two bodies.
Recently, lawyer Scott Fenton accused a RCMP official of telling four customs officers not to disclose to Meng that she was the subject of an arrest warrant.
Janice Vander Graaf, an RCMP sergeant and the highest ranked police officer called to the bar since the start of the judicial saga dismissed the charges.
While testifying, she said: “No, I have no recollection of that happening and I do not believe that happened,” she testified.
Fenton continued by saying: “You were concerned that if the (customs officials) told her about the indictment or the provisional arrest warrant, she might seek counsel.”
The policewoman replied by saying that the only instruction she gave to the customs officers was to seize Meng’s electronic devices and put them in frequency-locking bags at the request of FBI.
She said: “We weren’t asking for any information. We don’t need passwords to get into phones.”
