Canada judge won’t allow Huawei CFO to use HSBC documents in U.S. extradition case

VANCOUVER, July 9 (Reuters) – A Canadian judge has denied Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou’s motion to add a plethora of documents her legal team received from HSBC as evidence of her U.S. extradition case, the judge said Friday .

Meng, 49, faces extradition from Canada to the United States for allegedly misleading HSBC about Huawei’s business in Iran for bank fraud, potentially leading the bank to break US sanctions. She has been under house arrest in Vancouver since her first arrest in December 2018.

Her legal team received over 300 pages of internal documents from HSBC through a Hong Kong court that the defense believed should be presented as evidence as they would refute the basis for the United States’ extradition claim. Continue reading

Vice-presiding judge Heather Holmes, who has overseen the case before the British Columbia Supreme Court since its inception, disagreed. Their reasons will be published in writing in about ten days, Holmes said.

“We respect the court’s ruling, but we regret this result,” Huawei Canada said in a statement released after the ruling, insisting that the documents showed that HSBC was aware of Huawei’s business dealings in Iran, which proves that the US representation of the case “obviously unreliable.”

The Canadian government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Meng is due to appear in court in early August. Her extradition hearings are due to be completed by the end of the month.

Reporting from Moira Warburton in Vancouver; Adaptation by Diane Craft

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