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A Canadian border official testified on Friday that he received an “unusual” request from the FBI for the phone number of the shift supervisor the next day, when Huawei’s CFO Meng Wanzhou would arrive in Canada.
Huawei Technologies CFO Meng Wanzhou leaves her home to attend a court hearing in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada on October 26, 2020. REUTERS / Jennifer Gauthier / Files
VANCOUVER / TORONTO: A Canadian border official testified Friday that he received an “unusual” request from the FBI for the phone number of the shift supervisor the next day, when Huawei’s CFO Meng Wanzhou would arrive in Canada.
Bryce McRae, superintendent of the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA), testified before the British Columbia Supreme Court that the FBI did not call agents at Vancouver International Airport the next day.
The call from the Federal Bureau of Investigation employee lasted “maybe a minute or two” and was “out of the ordinary,” McRae said. He informed her that he would be on duty and gave her his number, but she did not know why he asked.
Meng’s attorneys have argued that the FBI conspired with the CBSA, the Canadian federal police and others at the time of his arrest to mount an “undercover criminal investigation.”
Meng, 48, was arrested with a US warrant while making a layover at the airport bound for Mexico. The United States charged her with bank fraud, accusing her of misleading HSBC about Huawei Technologies Co Ltd’s business in Iran, causing the bank to breach US sanctions.
Meng has said she is innocent and is fighting the charges from Vancouver, where she is under house arrest, monitored by private security at her home in the upscale Shaughnessy neighborhood.
This week’s witness cross-examination is part of Meng’s extradition hearing in the United States, where his lawyers have tried to back up his claims that his rights were violated during his arrest and mistakes were made, such as sharing his passwords with the police.
Canadian government prosecutors have tried to show that Meng’s arrest was made according to the rules and that any loophole in due process should not affect the validity of his extradition.
Earlier on Friday, Scott Kirkland, another border officer who questioned Meng before police arrested her, told the court that he was “flushed” when he realized that he mistakenly gave the passwords to his phones to police.
“It was heartbreaking to realize that I had made that mistake,” Kirkland said when asked by defense attorney Mona Duckett why the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) had the passwords and identification details of Meng’s electronic devices that Kirkland had scored. .
Witness testimony has been slower than expected. The court has scheduled an additional 4 1/2 days of hearings to testify in mid-November, in addition to a second week already scheduled for late November. Three more days will potentially be added in December, pending court scheduling.
Meng’s extradition hearings are set to conclude in April, although the possibility of appeals means the case could drag on for years.
Meng’s arrest has strained diplomatic relations between Ottawa and Beijing. Shortly after their arrest, China arrested two Canadian citizens on espionage charges.
(Reporting by Moira Warburton in Toronto and Tessa Vikander in Vancouver; Edited by Denny Thomas, Peter Cooney and Cynthia Osterman)
