VANCOUVER: On Tuesday, lawyers contesting Huawei’s extradition to the United States submitted internal communications from British bank HSBC that they claimed refuted US charges that Huawei misled the bank. The legal team for Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou claimed that emails and documents presented to a Canadian court revealed at least two top HSBC executives were aware of Huawei and its Iranian subsidiary, Skycom. HSBC did not respond to a request for comment.
Meng’s attorneys are attempting to get the documents added to the evidence. They are intended to refute US allegations that only junior employees of the British bank were aware of the true nature of Huawei’s relationship with Skycom. Prosecutors in the United States claim Meng lied to HSBC about Huawei’s business dealings in Iran, potentially causing the bank to violate US sanctions. Meng, 49, was arrested at Vancouver International Airport in December 2018 on suspicion of bank fraud in the United States. She has been under house arrest in Canada for more than two years while her case is being processed. Her legal team has obtained internal HSBC documents through a Hong Kong court, and they want to use them in the case’s final hearings in August.
Two HSBC managing directors allegedly watched Meng’s presentation to HSBC on Huawei’s business in Iran, according to the defense. According to them, it clarified Skycom’s ownership structure. On the first day of a two-day hearing, Meng and her legal team appeared before the British Columbia Supreme Court to advocate for the addition of further evidence to support her case. The evidence reveals that the US reasoning is “so flawed as to require the judges to place no confidence on them,” according to Mark Sandler, Meng’s defense counsel. The evidence and arguments, according to prosecutors for the Canadian government, were beyond the scope of an extradition hearing. (In Vancouver, Moira Warburton reported; Cynthia Osterman edited.)
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