VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) — A Canadian judge has denied the request from a senior executive for Chinese communications giant Huawei Technologies to submit new evidence into her extradition hearing.
“The application is denied,” said Associate Chief Justice Heather Holmes said Friday.
Holmes said her reasons for the refusal will be issued in 10 days.
Canada arrested Meng Wanzhou, Huawei’s chief financial officer who is also the daughter of the company’s founder, at the Vancouver airport on Dec. 1, 2018, at the request of the U.S., which wants her extradited to face fraud charges. The arrest infuriated Beijing, which sees her case as a political move designed to prevent China’s rise.
The U.S. accuses Huawei of using a Hong Kong shell company called Skycom to sell equipment to Iran in violation of U.S. sanctions. It says Meng committed fraud by misleading the HSBC bank about the company’s business dealings in Iran.
Meng’s lawyers had asked the court to allow recently obtained the evidence from HSBC through a court agreement in Hong Kong.
The documents include internal email chains and spreadsheets that Meng’s team argued show senior executives knew more about Huawei’s control over another company that did business in Iran than U.S. prosecutors claim.
During a hearing in June defense lawyers had said the new evidence would “fatally” undermine the case against Meng.
Canadian government lawyers argued the evident was more suited to a trial, not an extradition hearing.
Meng will be back in court Aug. 3.
That hearing is expected to take up to three weeks and will cover arguments over whether Meng was subjected to an abuse of process, the remedy related to that alleged abuse, and the actual committal hearing to determine if she should be extradited to the United States.
Soon after Meng’s arrest, China arrested Canadians Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig in apparent retaliation and charged them with spying. Both have remained in custody with limited access to visits by Canadian consular officials.
The two made closed-door court appearances over the last week. Canadian consular officials were barred from attending the proceedings and no verdicts were announced.
Meng remains free on bail in Vancouver and is living in a mansion.
