Huawei Lawyers Question Border Officials In US Extradition Case

The legal battle over the extradition of Huawei’s CFO Meng Wanzhou continues with a fourth day of questioning of Canadian officials in court.

Lawyers for Wanzhou resumed questioning a Canada border officer who intercepted Meng before the federal police arrested her, Reuters reported on Thursday.

Wanzhou was arrested in early December 2018 by Canadian authorities on behalf of the United States, for alleged sanction busting with Iran.

Copyright The Globe and Mail.com

Court case

Wanzhou disputed her arrest right from the start, and in March 2019 she sued the Canadian government, its border agency and federal police, and alleged that she was detained, searched and interrogated for three hours in violation of her constitutional rights.

However in May she lost a legal battle in British Columbia’s Supreme Court in Vancouver, after it ruled that Wanzhou’s extradition to the United States can proceed.

But on Wednesday, Reuters reported that Scott Kirkland, an officer with the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA), told a Vancouver court he was worried about allegations being brought of potential civil rights violations if the agency intercepted and interviewed Wanzhou before her arrest by Canadian police.

Wanzhou’s legal team have alleged abuses of process happened in the three hours between when she was intercepted by CBSA officers and her arrest by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), when she had no legal representation.

Police testimony

The officer who arrested her, RCMP Constable Winston Yep, testified over Monday, Tuesday and part of Wednesday, before Kirkland took the stand, Reuters reported.

Yep reportedly insisted that the RCMP stayed in their lane and did not direct the CBSA in its investigation of Wanzhou.

Canadian prosecutors have tried to prove that Wanzhou’s arrest was carried out correctly, and any lapses in due process should not impact the validity of her extradition.

Wanzhou’s extradition hearings are scheduled to wrap up in April 2021, although the potential for appeals mean the case could drag on for years.

Tom Jowitt

Tom Jowitt is a leading British tech freelancer and long standing contributor to Silicon UK. He is also a bit of a Lord of the Rings nut...

Recent Posts

Amazon Mulls New Multi-Billion Dollar Investment In Anthropic – Report

Amazon is reportedly in talks to pump billions of dollars more into AI start-up Anthropic,…

3 hours ago

FTX’s Caroline Ellison Begins Her Two Year Prison Sentence

Star witness for the US prosecution of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, has begun her two…

4 hours ago

More Layoffs For iRobot Staff After Abandoned Amazon Deal

After axing 31 percent of its workforce when it failed to be acquired by Amazon,…

21 hours ago

Mozilla Foundation Confirms Layoffs, Eliminates Advocacy Division

Mozilla Foundation axes 30 percent of its staff, and is eliminating its Advocacy Division that…

22 hours ago

Google To Make MFA Mandatory Next Year

Improving security. Mandatory multi-factor authentication (MFA) is coming to the Google Cloud by the end…

23 hours ago

UK Government Launch AI Safety Platform For Businesses

New AI assurance platform from UK government will help businesses ensure they can safely develop…

24 hours ago