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Canada had to arrest Meng Wanzhou and it was not arbitrary, but the detention is now illegal, says his lawyer.
Canada was forced to arrest Meng Wanzhou at Vancouver airport more than two years ago, but his detention has now been revealed as illegal, the Huawei Technologies executive’s lawyer said at her extradition hearing in Vancouver on Wednesday. Attorney Gib van Ert said Meng’s arrest on a US fraud warrant was not arbitrary, a position in contrast to repeated claims by the Chinese government. “Canada had to detain Ms Meng, having received what, at first glance, was an extradition request in good faith. We were bound by our treaty obligations to take America’s claims seriously, to take the necessary steps to detain Ms. Meng pending the determination of her extradition, ”he said. Have questions about the hottest topics and trends from around the world? Get the answers with SCMP Knowledge, our new curated content platform with explanations, FAQs, analytics, and infographics from our award-winning team. “We had to do those things and we did them and there is nothing of that which is arbitrary detention. However, we say that it has now been revealed that it is an illegal detention. ” Van Ert told British Columbia Supreme Court Associate Chief Justice Heather Holmes that he couldn’t help ruling on whether the United States had jurisdiction over Meng by referring the matter to the Canadian justice minister. “If this extradition request is, as we say, contrary to international law, the consequence of that is that Ms. Meng’s detention is illegal… that is not a matter that you can leave in the hands of the minister. That is a matter that my wife has to attend to, ”he said. Van Ert said that accepting the basis of the US charges against Meng related to the conduct in Hong Kong was “equivalent to accepting unlimited US jurisdiction.” Canada’s judge ‘must rule’ if US jurisdiction covers Meng’s actions in Hong Kong. badge. The United States “uses these transactions as a basis for extending its jurisdiction … beyond legal limits,” van Ert said. Meng is accused of defrauding HSBC by lying to the bank during a 2013 meeting about Huawei’s business in Iran, putting the bank at risk of violating US sanctions on the Middle Eastern country. But Meng is Chinese, HSBC is British, and the meeting took place in a Hong Kong tea house. Van Ert has told the court that therefore the United States does not have jurisdiction over Meng’s alleged conduct that day. Van Ert said the US jurisdiction claim is based on the dollar clearing process, in which US dollar transfers between two non-US bank accounts can go through their respective US correspondent banks. The allegations against Meng cite around $ 2 million in transfers between Huawei’s subsidiary Skycom and a British company called Networkers. The lawyer said the transactions amounted to a British company paying a Chinese company for services in Iran, a process that would have had no connection to the United States if the transaction had been paid for, say, in cash in Britain. “We would not be here,” van Ert said, and the alleged connection of the transactions with the US was “at best incidental,” even leaving aside whether they could later connect to Meng. He quoted American law professor William Dodge, former international law adviser to the US Department of State, who wrote in an affidavit: “Territorial jurisdiction cannot support the application of the bank fraud, wire fraud, and US conspiracy when none of the conduct occurred in the United States. ” Meanwhile, Dutch international law professor Cedric Ryngaert wrote that the exercise of US jurisdiction over the routing of payments through US correspondent banks “regardless of the extraterritorial nature of the underlying transaction and the persons involved … it is contrary to the genuine connection requirement under international law. ” Ryngaert said in his affidavit that such a jurisdictional claim was “tenuous.” Meng’s mansions in Vancouver are not in his name, according to the extradition case. The issue of “US extradition based on dollar compensation”, with respect to its sanctions regime, had been identified by academics for years, van Ert said. “If you have it in Hong Kong, you have it anywhere in the world,” van Ert said of US jurisdiction. He quoted French law professor Regis Bismuth, who wrote in an affidavit that the essence of the US correspondent account jurisdiction claims “is actually to serve as a jurisdictional power for the US to de facto regulate the use of its currency abroad and extend its restrictions to transactions over which it cannot exercise its territorial or personal jurisdiction ”. However, van Ert told Holmes that he was not asking him to rule on the legality of the US sanctions, only on the legality of Meng’s extradition request to face trial in New York. Canadian government attorneys representing U.S. interests in the case say that the jurisdictional argument should not be dealt with by the British Columbia court, and that it should be left to the U.S. trial to approve the extradition of Meng if Holmes approves. The jurisdictional claims are the latest branch of an argument by Meng’s lawyers that she is the victim of an abuse of process that has been so “egregious” that the only remedy is for Holmes to release her. The other branches are that Meng is the victim of a political prosecution used as leverage in America’s trade war with China, that Canadian police and border officers conducted an undercover criminal investigation of Meng to assist the Federal Bureau of Investigation. of the United States, and that US prosecutors provided the British Columbia court with misleading summaries of their case against Meng. Meng, 49, is Huawei’s chief financial officer and the eldest daughter of the company’s founder, Ren Zhengfei. His arrest at the Vancouver airport on December 1, 2018, at the request of the United States, outraged the Chinese government and has disrupted its relations with Canada and the United States for the past two years. “American Laws Don’t Apply in China”: A New Front Opens in the Fight for Meng’s Extradition. Beijing has repeatedly described Meng as a victim of arbitrary detention. In February, after Canada signed a statement denouncing the arbitrary detention of foreign nationals, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying called Ottawa a hypocrite. “The alleged statement by Canada is more like a confession in which the Canadian side admits its error in the Meng Wanzhou case,” Hua had said. “On the one hand, the Canadian side defends that it adheres to the rule of law, but on the other hand, it acts as an accomplice of the United States and arbitrarily detains Chinese citizens.” On Wednesday, another of Meng’s attorneys, William Smart, said the extradition process had had a “profound” effect on Meng and his family, calling the US extradition request an “affront” that should be denied. “She spent 10 or 11 days in jail, she has been living under a form of house arrest for the last 27 months, away from her family and friends, except when they can visit her. His life has turned upside down, ”Smart told the BC court. “The publicity and scrutiny of her has been extraordinary, in large part because she is in the midst of a political struggle between the requesting state and her country. The requesting state has no jurisdiction. This whole extradition process is a misuse and abuse of the process of this court. ”Meng’s life would never be the same after his“ ordeal, ”Smart added. Meng lives under partial house arrest in a 13-year-old mansion. , 7 million Canadian dollars (10.9 million US dollars), one of two houses that she owns in Vancouver, but is free to travel through most of the city as long as she is accompanied by private guards.for a touch of He remains, and uses a GPS tracker. Days after Meng’s original arrest, China arrested Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, charging them with espionage. In the past two weeks, both were subjected to closed-door trials lasting only a few weeks. hours; no verdicts announced. Canada says they are victims of hostage diplomacy and arbitrary detention by China in retaliation for Meng’s treatment. Meng’s case was postponed until Thursday, the last or day of a block of hearings of three weeks. His long battle for extradition may be coming to an end, with the final three weeks of hearings scheduled to conclude on May 14 before Holmes steps down to consider whether to release Meng or approve the extradition and send the final decision to the minister. of Justice. But the appeals could take years. More from South China Morning Post: Extradition Judge Told That She, Not the Minister, Must Decide Whether the US Has Jurisdiction Over Meng Wanzhou’s Actions in Hong Kong ‘US Laws Do Not Apply in China, ‘the court was told, As a new front opens up in the fight for Meng Wanzhou’s extradition Reject Meng Wanzhou’s’ exciting narrative’ of abuse, a Canadian government lawyer tells the extradition judge Putting Meng Wanzhou on trial would be ‘a triumph for the rule of law’, says a Canadian government lawyer This article Canada had to arrest Meng Wanzhou and it was not arbitrary, but the detention is now illegal, says his lawyer who appeared by first time on South China Morning Post. For the latest news from the South China Morning Post, download our mobile app. Copyright 2021.
