US ends case against Huawei CFO who holed up in Canada for three years The USA's case against Huawei CFO and chair Wanzhuo Meng has ended. Judge Ann M. Donnelly last Friday dismissed the case after the US Department of Justice sought that action on grounds that Meng had complied with a deferred prosecution agreement. The deal was part of the long and complex dispute that arose over her role in …
As thames noted below, Meng was not charged with breaking either primary or secondary sanctions; rather, Meng was charged with bank fraud, wire fraud, and conspiracies to commit bank and wire fraud, all of which are crimes in both Canada and the US, thus meeting the “dual criminality” requirement to request extradition.
The alleged activity occurred in Hong Kong, not the USA or Canada... further involved a European BANK! Neither Canada nor the US had jurisdiction. And she was the first person ever charged in history for the alleged acts of a corporation. When her attorney's presented evidence from the Bank of NO FRAUD, Canada quashed the evidence in favour of stalled detention, claiming that CANADA was not interested in judging the facts of the CASE. US lawyers would have ripped the DOJ a new ^ss#one in Court. Just as they did in the Ted Stephen's case.
Every loudmouth is a John Wayne until they get their lights punched out in Court. The Ted Stephens case resulted in 6 US Gov Attorneys getting sanctioned or disbarred for withholding evidence.
To grant an extradition request, the extraditing state does not need criminal jurisdiction in a case; what it needs is dual criminality for the crime(s) which the accused is alleged to have committed. The extraditing state does not sit in judgement of the accused; rather, it rules on the validity of the allegations of the requesting state, to ensure that dual criminality applies.
Regarding US jurisdiction, the superseding indictment [PDF] alleged that there were four different victim multinational financial institutions, all of which had US subsidiaries which were alleged to have been affected by the purported actions of the accused.
Four of the 13 counts in the indictment were applied to all of Huawei, Skycom, and Meng; the other nine counts did not involve Meng. Given that the four counts alleged against Meng were also alleged against Huawei and Skycom, which of those counts made her “the first person ever charged in history for the alleged acts of a corporation”?
China fucked with Canada for years over this costing billions of dollars in trade and held a few citizens hostage in retaliation. All for doing America's thankless bidding.
On the plus side it forced Canada to invest in processing canola domestically instead of exporting raw seed. Downside, I think a lot of that is destined for biodiesel, not human consumption.
So are you one of those Americans who thinks Canada is "communist/socialist", or one of the Chinese who thinks anyone who tells them "No" is a "criminal?"
Either way, that chip on your shoulder is going to give you back problems eventually...
As I pointed out in the comments in the comments to the previous story (which El Reg references in this one), the whole story was very badly reported on by the international press, who mainly just reprinted US official spin. The Canadian press attended the actual trials and their reports gave a very different picture.
To summarize a few points, the reason the US charges were constructed as "fraud" was to get around Canadian extradition law ("dual criminality"). Sanctions charges would have been tossed out by the court in Vancouver immediately, as Canada was still part of the European deal with Iran so no sanctions laws were violated in Canada. The US therefore constructed a very convoluted argument that "fraud" was committed because fraud is illegal in Canada, and they knew the judge in Vancouver was not able to take into consideration whether there was a genuine fraud case against Meng, just that fraud was also a crime in Canada and the US was charging her with that.
Meng's lawyers were able to obtain copies of documents directly from HSBC which contradicted versions provided by the US as evidence (they needed to show that they had some sort of evidence). The US versions of the documents turned out to have been edited by the US to remove significant exculpatory evidence. However, the extradition judge didn't consider these documents, as they were evidence of Meng's innocence and Meng's guilt or innocence could play no part in an extradition hearing which was only concerned with whether the right paperwork had been filled out and whether Canadian officials had behaved legally.
Canada is in the process of revising its extradition laws due to systematic abuse of the extradition processes by allies. This was already on the agenda before the Meng case and so had nothing to do with that. France in particular were notorious for extradition cases which turned out to lack substance upon actual trial. The extradition review is now back on the table after having been sidelined by the pandemic.
The Meng extradition case seemed to be on the point of collapse on abuse of process grounds when the US suddenly reversed course and decided they wanted a "deal" instead. Meng's strongest arguments against extradition had always been on abuse of process grounds, and the hearings on that were about to start when the deal to drop the extradition was reached. The evidence before the court showed that Canadian police and immigration officials had been doing illegal favours for their US counterparts, police were suddenly reversing their testimony and contradicting their written notes, and one of the key senior police witnesses had left the country (to go to Macau!) and had hired a lawyer to try to fight having to testify. There were a lot of people who may have found to have been involved in a lot of unsavoury activities if the hearings had proceeded. This sort of thing probably goes on all the time, the police just weren't used to dealing with someone who had the money to hire the lawyers to fight it.
A series of senior retired Canadian diplomats and cabinet ministers had advised Ottawa that they had sufficient grounds to toss the case on final review (this would have followed a judges decision). Trudeau however was desperate to avoid getting dragged into the issue because he had just taken a major kicking at the polls over the SNC legal scandal and wanted to avoid anything which might remind people of that, regardless of whether it was justified or not.
Canada had been pressing the US to make some sort of "deal". Trump however was not willing to accommodate him, although Trump's offer to China to release Meng in return for a good trade deal would likely by itself have provided grounds for Canada to refuse extradition at a later point in the process.
However, Trump was gone, and Biden was apparently more willing to be accommodating to Canada and so a deal was finally done. It was widely suspected that this was a quid pro quo in return for Canada not making a fuss over the cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline.
Very nice summary, thank you!
> the judge in Vancouver was not able to take into consideration whether there was a genuine fraud case against Meng, just that fraud was also a crime in Canada and the US was charging her with that.
In the EU, it's the facts that count, not the accusations, although the Spaniards are trying hard to have that changed, so that they can engage in political persecution freely and drag the rest of us into it too.
Before Vendetta goes hippie... and you espouse more stumblebum Canadian virtue... Let's just review ONE SALIENT point. Meng Wanzhou was the FIRST PERSON IN HISTORY to be personally charged for the alleged activity of a business breaching some US sanctions.
Why was she the first person ever to be charged rather than charging the company? That's easy enough. Her father is Ren Zhengfei founder of Huawei and a Xi close friend. This kidnapping reeked. And China gave Canada some of its own medicine. You want to play spineless shill to Donald Trump... Good luck with that.
Canada behaved as a collective moron. They involved the otherwise moral and decent Canadian Mounted Police in a kidnapping scheme. Trump turns anything into a stench. Naturally, Trump attacked a woman. The filthy orange tiny hands that treat women of any brand with disrespect. He is a rude pig and Macron or Eyebrows, should have taken a swing at Trump and knocked him on his lard^ss.
There are the big three law firms in Washington DC that wanted the case to come to the US. They never lose to DOJ. One is Williams and Connolly and another Steptoe. The DOJ wanted CANADA to stall to just keep the woman under house arrest to amuse Trump's Administration as political leverage against China or Trump's Chinese loans. They did not want Meng's case in the US where they would lose. So they relied on the spineless Canadians to do Trump's political bidding. Canada performed flawlessly. They knew no person had ever been held for the alleged activities of a business. Further, they knew the alleged activity took place in Hong Kong. The US had no jurisdiction over a European Bank except its wretched reach through SWIFT. Leverage NOT LAW.
This woman in a sea of spineless Canadians and John Wayners stood with unflinching dignity and poise. She made Trump and her Canadian captors look like fools. Canada's great claim that they would never extradite a political case fell by the wayside. Instead, they were the kidnappers doing the dirty dead for Trump. One more Trump sycophant to cower to the bombastic loud blowhard. A panzy nation dependent on one trade relationship. Canada was in bed with the worst elements in its history.
In the end Canada was the bag holder. Biden wanted no part of holding a woman hostage to amuse Trump and his band of morons. China played hardball with Canada and the results could have been much worse. Tiny Canada spouting off at China for kidnapping two Canadian spies... got no support from the US whatsoever. It was Biden that cut the deal with Xi to exchange hostages.
The lesson for Canada is not that you need more law or legal revision over extradition. Try to envision some reality here. When India tried to extradite Warren G. Anderson the CEO of Union Carbide over Baphol, the US Gov rejected the High Court of India's extradition request claiming insufficient facts. So you see Canada, extradition is an arbitrary and capricious hot mess when dealing with the US. They have a very one-sided view of it... what benefits the US.
The same thing applies to NAFTA2 the rather one-sided US trade Agreement. Imagine a Free Trade Agreement where the US president under Section 230 can impose Tariffs on Canada with impunity... in the FACE of a FREE TRADE AGREEMENT.
Your arguments twist and turn in expansive legal theory. There was no theory here other than Canada being utterly mindless and kidnapping this woman without cause. Canada richly deserves the Trump Bag and the Trump and Biden Tariffs and the strip out of the Keystone 2. You are John Wayne's btch along with the UK and Australia. You are nothing but abused children tearfully seeking the approval of your John Wayne Daddy and punisher.
This is one saga, where the Canadians got just what they deserved... exactly as the UK got when naval hostages were taken by Iran and outfitted with shinny new bespoke suits. Richly deserved humiliation for the John Wayne shills... who got nothing but a good old fashion btch slapping for the world to enjoy.
> The matter started in 2018, when Meng was arrested in Canada after an extradition request from US authorities, who alleged that Huawei had done business in Iran
That country that can get you arrested in Canada because you, a Chinese national, work for a Chinese company doing business in the Middle East.
Accused of trumped up crimes ("no pun intended") as a way of getting him rapidly extradited to the US. Held captive in an embassy for years (at some considerable cost to the UK taxpayer). Then moved to solitary confinement in a high security prison -- for jumping bail.
Gradually being moved to the US......when the time is ripe and the UK public is otherwise distracted.
Ultimately yet another case of extra-territorial jurisdiction -- we like our lapdogs supine and the UK's a favorite in that respect, almost as good as Canada (because if Meng had landed in the UK then there's no way that she'd have been let off the hook -- they'd find something else bogus to hang on her).
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/dec/06/shrouded-in-secrecy-the-australian-trial-of-a-former-marines-pilot-facing-extradition-to-the-us
Apparently we (the US) are at war with China. The Aussies are almost as reliably compliant as the Brits when it comes to arresting people to order. This one is a new one because it appears that you can be arrested in AUS on unspecified charges and held in some kind of Supermax effectively incommunicado for doing something that wouldn't attract any attention at all if it were done in 150 or so other countries --- but its China. The Enemy.
I'm getting really fed up with my government. Raging around like some out of control (but ultimately impotent) bull, all legal this and sealed that but never anything useful, something that might benefit the people rather than the MIC.
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