A Canadian judge rejected a request from Huawei's chief financial officer, who wanted to hear the testimony of an accountant of the Chinese giant as evidence in her battle to fight her extradition to the United States.
Read also: Huawei executive accuses Canada of destroying compromising evidence
Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou, 49, is accused by the United States of bank fraud and conspiracy in connection with alleged violations of US sanctions against Iran by a subsidiary of the telecoms giant.
Washington accuses Huawei number 2 of lying to HSBC, during a meeting in 2013, about its relationship with its subsidiary Skycom, which operated in Iran, at the risk of pushing the bank to violate sanctions without its knowledge American.
Meng Wanzhou's attorneys hoped with the accountant's testimony to prove that Meng Wanzhou's alleged false statements to HSBC regarding his subsidiary to obtain a loan had not put the bank at risk, because Huawei never used this. silver.
"This evidence is irrelevant to the issues raised at the extradition hearing
,
"
Justice Heather Holmes said in her decision.
This is the third time that the judge has rejected a request for defense testimony.
Violated rights
In addition, the representative of the prosecutor, Robert Frater, on Tuesday urged the judge to reject the defense accusations about a plot that the Canadian and American authorities would have mounted to collect evidence against Meng Wanzhou during his arrest in Vancouver airport in December 2018. Meng Wanzhou's lawyers have been trying for months to prove that his rights were violated during his arrest, in the hope of derailing the extradition process to the United States.
They suspect a Canadian police officer of having sent the American FBI an email containing illegally the passwords of his electronic devices confiscated at the airport, which denies the representative of the prosecutor.
“The story doesn't make sense,”
he said.
The extradition hearings of Meng Wanzhou, who has lived under house arrest in Vancouver since his arrest in late 2018, have entered their final phase.
They should end in mid-May.
Relations between Ottawa and Beijing are going through an unprecedented crisis since the arrest in China of former Canadian diplomat Michael Kovrig and his compatriot Michael Spavor, a few days after that of Meng Wanzhou.
The two Canadians have just been tried for
"espionage"
and are awaiting their sentences.
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