Detention of Meng Wanzhou - CFO of Huawei

Meng Wanzhou returns to court as US election focus and political pressures mount

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/meng-wanzhou-huawei-reco...

"...Legal observers say this week's hearings are unlikely to sway the [Liberal appointed] judge, given the nature of Canadian extradition law. But they believe Canada's justice minister will face increasing pressure  to intervene due to allegations of political interference and China's ongoing detention of Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor.

Meng has accused US President Donald Trump of using her as a bargaining chip in a trade war with China. She also claims Canadian and American authorities mounted a criminal investigation against her, sharing information from her electronic devices and questioning her for three hours before she was officially arrested - contrary to the instructions of the judge who issued the extradition warrant.

Starting Monday, Meng's lawyers hope to convince Associate Chief Justice Heather Holmes that claims about the US allegedly misleading the court also meet the threshold needed for consideration as an abuse of process worthy of ending the proceedings. The defence team claim the US provided the judge with a skewed version of events by omitting facts that prove HSBC didn't rely on Meng's assurances to decide the bank wanted to keep financing Huawei..."

Many resonances with the Julian Assange extradition trial underway in London. Both are examples of subservient vassal court systems turning tricks for  imperial Washington in outrageous and obvious violation of their own guidelines such as refusing extradition where it is obvious 'political' considerations are involved. In both cases vicious and sustained smear and disinformation campaigns manufacture consent for both kangaroo courts to do their dirty work with little criticism or protest. A compliant and complicit concierge media as always assists.

Oh I forgot it's only in the US Supreme Court and the replacement of Ruth 'one-black-intern-in-30 years' Ginsburg, where the party that names judges matters, not in the impeccably politically impartial bench of BC. But never mind, I'm sure you'll be very popular with the rednecks for your little outburst anyway.

You fuck off BC lawyer and take your pollyanna legal fiction BC bullshit with you.  I've seen close up and personal the malevolence of your BC judges defending the interests of their political masters and am quite well acquainted both with the machinations of their selection and the behind the scenes orchestration of the cases these judicial hitmen sit upon.   Crooked as a dog's hind leg. Both of these cases at item are clearly and manifestly tainted by their overtly political nature and thereby entitled to disqualification.  Both defendants are being tried for offenses not criminal in the jurisdictions in which they are being tried. Yet both judges have wilfully ignored these caveats in order to fulfill their political marching orders which are to deliver Julian Assange and Meng Wanzhou to the tender mercies of Washington and nothing but nothing, especially the law is going to stop them. Because that's the way the power relations work. These are fixed games with pre-determined outcomes whether you know it or not.

NDPP thanks for your intelligent and mannered debate. I can see why you are so influential at persuading others to your point of view. You are an American Exceptionalist at heart. You believe theirs is the only system worth understanding so you can't be bothered with the differences between it and other judiciaries. There are lots of US wannabes on the left in Canada.

Meng Wanzhou's Lawyers Claim US Tried to 'Trick' Judge in Extradition Case

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/meng-wanzhou-record-tric...

"A lawyer for Meng Wanzhou accused the US Wednesday of abusing the privileges of its extradition treaty with Canada to try to deliver the Huawei executive to New York on a faulty set of facts. In a final bid to BC Supreme Court Associate Chief Justice Heather Homes, Frank Addario told the judge she should hold a detailed hearing on allegations the US misled the court by omitting key components of the case that undermine allegations of fraud against Meng.

Holmes reserved her judgment Wednesday after two and a half days of hearings. Holmes did not say when she expects to deliver a decision on the defence's applications. Meng is next set to appear in court at the end of October, when a week of hearings has been set aside for her lawyers to question the police officers and border agents who detained her at Vancouver airport on Dec.1, 2018. Meng's lawyers claim Canadian authorities gave information about her laptop, phones and tablet to US authorities in what amounted to a covert criminal investigation. A hearing is set for February on those allegations, along with allegations that Meng is being used as a bargaining chip by US President Donald Trump in a trade war with China..."

As with the Assange extradition case, evident and obvious collaboration by vassal authorities with the American overlords  operations against its chosen political targets.

Judge Upholds Majority of Canada's Privilege Claims in Huawei CFO's US Extradition Case

https://twitter.com/justinpodur/status/1314732696795480064

"I am just so glad Meng Wanzhou is trapped in a state with the rule of law and not a Kafka trial where she can't see the evidence against her. Because that would be authoritarian."

Liberal appointed, Associate Chief Justice Marilyn Homes is a 'safe' judge who sits on this case precisely because she can be trusted to do the right thing as demonstrated by steering it to its intended destination. Her British counterpart, in her London kangaroo court, sitting on the US extradition case of Julian Assange can also be trusted to deliver the intended victim up to the tender mercies of  Washington. This despite the supposed exemption of such outcomes where cases are of an obvious 'political nature'. Naturally both judges have already ruled their cases to be no such thing.

[quote=NorthReport]

https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/border-services-officer-shocked...

[quote=NDPP]

The little northern vassal that could: the Canamerican stitch-up of China's Meng Wan Zhou.

I think they are getting ready to release her a few months after Trump is out of office. 

Inside the CBC article was a link to the case. It is a little long however for those interested it sets out the issues extremely well because Meng is basically claiming that the US case itself is a fraud on the Canadian courts and should be rejected without being heard.

[13]         As Ms. Meng seeks to do by way of this application, a person sought may challenge the sufficiency of the requesting state’s evidence by tendering their own evidence to establish that the record of the case is manifestly unreliable:  United States v. Bennett, 2014 BCCA 145 at para. 18.

[14]         Section 32(1)(c) of the Extradition Act allows for this if, in the language of that provision, the proposed evidence “is relevant to the tests set out in subsection 29(1)”, and “the judge considers it reliable”.  The person sought must therefore show that the proposed evidence is both reliable and relevant before the evidence may be admitted:  M.M. v. United States of America, 2015 SCC 62 at para. 74.

[15]         The reliability requirement is a modest one.  Justice Cromwell helpfully explained it as follows (M.M. at para. 75):

The reliability requirement means that the evidence must possess “sufficient indicia of reliability to make it worth consideration by the judge at the hearing”: Ferras, at para. 53. This “threshold reliability” requirement is not an onerous standard. It imposes “no greater evidentiary hurdle to the person sought” than the evidentiary requirements governing the requesting state: ibid.

[16]         In this case, the requesting state concedes that all of the evidence Ms. Meng seeks to adduce is reliable evidence.  I will therefore discuss the reliability requirement no further, and will turn instead to the relevance requirement.

[17]         For that requirement, relevance relates not to the guilt or innocence of the person sought, but rather to the matter for determination in the extradition hearing, namely whether a prima facie case is established that the person sought committed the offence set out in the authority to proceed – in this case, fraud.  For that reason, evidence will almost never be admitted if it is adduced for purposes relating to, for example, the credibility of witnesses, or the weight of evidence, or to offer defences or inferences or explanations alternative to those suggested by the requesting state’s evidence.  Those purposes are not relevant to the task of the judge in the extradition hearing, which is limited to determining whether a prima facie case is established.

[18]         Justice Fitch (then of this Court) in India v. Badesha, 2013 BCSC 2260 at para. 28, expanded on the types of evidence that courts in British Columbia have consistently refused to admit because they are irrelevant to the question on committal:

Since Ferras, Mach and Anderson courts in British Columbia have consistently refused to admit under s. 32(1)(c):  proposed evidence inviting the extradition judge to consider “alternative explanations for the certified evidence, to make findings of credibility, or weigh defence evidence comparatively against that of the requesting state” (see United States of America v. Multani et al., unreported (30 August 2007) Vancouver Registry #23818 (S.C.) at para. 13, United States of America v. Graham, 2007 BCCA 345, 222 C.C.C. (3d) 1, per Hall J.A., concurring in the result, at para. 41, and United States of America v. U.A.S., 2013 BCCA 483 at para. 44); evidence that would only “supplement the evidence of the requesting state with an innocent exculpatory explanation” which, if it is accepted or gives rise to reasonable doubt, could lead to an acquittal at trial (see United States of America v. Graziani, 2007 BCSC 178 at para. 10 and Edwards, at paras. 4 and 35); and evidence of an innocent explanation or evidence that might found an inference inconsistent with guilt in a circumstantial case where that evidence does not render the requesting state’s evidence manifestly unreliable or otherwise lay a foundation to dispute that the prosecution will be in a position to lead the evidence constituting its case against him (United Kingdom v. Aziz, 2013 BCCA 414 at paras. 36-37).

[19]         To meet the relevance requirement, the person sought must generally establish that the evidence, taken at its highest, is realistically capable of satisfying the exacting standard required in order to justify refusing committal on the basis that the requesting state’s evidence is unreliable.  In M.M. at para. 78, Cromwell J. described the standard as follows:

I conclude that in order to admit evidence from the person sought, directed against the reliability of the evidence of the requesting state, the judge must be persuaded that the proposed evidence, considered in light of the entire record, could support the conclusion that the evidence essential to committal is so unreliable or defective that it should be disregarded.

[20]         Nonetheless, there may be some very rare and unusual cases where evidence of a type normally considered irrelevant to the extradition judge’s task may be admitted if it could meet the high threshold for demonstrating that the requesting state’s evidence is unreliable, justifying a refusal to commit.  Justice Cromwell explained in M.M. at para. 85:

This is not to say that courts must always reject evidence which (1) invites the judge to assess credibility, (2) establishes a basis for competing inferences, or (3) provides for an exculpatory account of events. It is possible that such evidence may in certain, and likely fairly unusual, cases meet the high threshold for showing that the evidence of the requesting state should not be relied on. Ferras leaves open the possibility that, for example, evidence of virtually unimpeachable authenticity and reliability which contradicts the ROC could rebut the presumption of its reliability and could justify refusal to commit. Such situations I would expect to be very rare.

[21]         In summary, “evidence that strikes directly at the reliability of the requesting state’s materials” is relevant to the s. 29 inquiry and will be admissible.  Evidence that is not realistically capable of challenging the threshold reliability of the requesting state’s case will not be received:  Lucero‑Echegoyan at paras. 15-16.

[22]         With those principles in view, I turn to consider the seven items of evidence Ms. Meng seeks to adduce.

https://www.bccourts.ca/jdb-txt/sc/20/16/2020BCSC1607.htm

I think there is a fair chance Trudeau and Biden after assuming the presidency will work something out to let her go in some facesaving manner because they have bigger fish to fry.

kropotkin1951 wrote:

jerrym wrote:

I think there is a fair chance Trudeau and Biden after assuming the presidency will work something out to let her go in some facesaving manner because they have bigger fish to fry.

I love the fact that everyone understands that this is a politically motivated act that will be ended by political interference not the legal process, which is being subverted given the political nature of the arrest. The facade is slipping.

Mostly agree, but the term interference itself suggests and an illusionary pre-existing independence of the judiciary which seldom exists when international affairs and state interests are involved.

Law and its process is the political handmaiden of the state which institutes it. From selective use of sanctions to such laws as the Magnitsky Act, the process is the tool which puts the lipstick on the pig. Meng's arrest and court proceedings were the result of state collusion, as will be its outcome.

The use of lawfare, politicized legal process, to effect political goals is accepted as the norm and was presciently predicted and endorsed in a right-wing article in 2017 as Trump's favourite means of aggression:

'Lawfare' Could Become Trump Tool Against Adversaries
By Steve Herman
January 24, 2017

STATE DEPARTMENT - Use of the law as a weapon of war may find favor with the Trump administration, according to some scholars and attorneys.

The concept is popularly known as "lawfare," and is used to reach strategic objectives traditionally achieved by the use of lethal weapons.

One lawfare specialist predicts the new U.S. president will find the practice familiar, noting Donald Trump's use of law as a weapon in his business.

Trump "sued his business adversaries some 1,900 times in the past decades, which, according to the study, is far out of proportion from what similar businesses were doing," said Arizona State University law professor Orde Kittrie, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
And if you look at quotes from Donald Trump, and you look at quotes from people associated with him, they see law as a weapon to be used to advance their business interests and crash their adversaries in business," he said.

The Trump administration is still putting into place its top layers at various agencies, including the State Department.

"I don't know what plans the Trump administration may have to incorporate lawfare into its foreign policy strategy, but if we have an opportunity to use law instead of more traditional weapons to address foreign policy issues, I'm all for it," said professor Charles Dunlap, executive director of Duke University's Center on Law, Ethics and National Security....

https://www.voanews.com/usa/lawfare-could-become-trump-tool-against-adve...

Boom-Bust: Canadian Border Agent Questions Huawei CFO Over Wikipedia (and vid)

https://www.rt.com/shows/boom-bust/507249-astrazeneca-last-stage-vaccine...

@16:45: "Canada resumes its extradition trial for Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou. 'US got Canadian authorities to conduct a search of the Chinese executive under conditions and terms that were not legal..."

Canada Should Release Meng Wanzhou - and Pursue an Independent Foreign Policy

https://twitter.com/Ccarken/status/1330986475085762562

"The current hearings on the extradition of Meng Wazhou are a tangled web of legal arguments that obscure a single truth: The Canadian government is enabling a witch-hunt on the part of  a right-wing Trump administration against a Chinese capitalist rival - the telecommunications giant Huawei. This is putting Canada in the crosshairs of the US and China, aligning us closer than ever to wayward Amreican foreign policy and jeopardizing the safety and security of all..."

An excellent article which lays out the important events of this debacle in good order, leading to the conclusion that this was always clearly a political prosecution and that our government should have been smart enough to see that and refuse to play the game.

CBSA Manager Told Not to Take Notes After Arrest of Meng Wanzhou Court Hears

https://globalnews.ca/news/7512911/meng-wanzhou-cbsa-manager/

"...Nicole Goodman, chief of passenger operations at Vancouver airport testified that she wanted to create a case summary or timelinne of events but did not do so on the direction of Roslyn MacVicar, who was the agency's regional director-general Pacific region. The court is hearing witness testimony that Meng's lawyers will use to bolster an abuse of process claim next year in a bid to prevent her extradition to the United States..."

How the USA Dominates Tech

https://youtu.be/EgzB4_Zw3RE

The untold story of how the US uses its hegemony to take down non-US tech giants such as Huawei. An excellent backgrounder to the Meng Wanzhou saga. America has done this before...

Huawei vs America: Why Meng Wanzhou will be released in 2021

https://youtu.be/xrnatU7emJU

"One of the biggest stories between the US and China has involved Huawei and the arrest of its CFO Meng Wanzhou. 'An abuse of process akin to a trade hostage..."

Canada as American chump/patsy. Again.

I think it's obvious that the charges against Meng Wanzhou were politically motivated. 

It is not so much Biden = Trump but rather what has been called the ratchet effect of neo-con duopolies. The new "reform" leader never goes back to far but merely back down to the last notch before the "evil" side notched it up. This pattern keeps repeating, in Canada as well. Mulroney, Chretien, Martin, Harper, Trudeau, not one has even fully reversed the austerity of their predecessors.

Bank Fraud Charge Against Meng Wanzhou is Bogus, Lawyers Argue in New Court Filing

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-bank-fraud-charge-again...

"Lawyers for Meng Wanzhou, the Huawei executive who has been fighting for extradition to the US for more than two years, argue in a new court filing that the bank charge upon which the warrant rests is bogus. Ms Meng's lawyers say the US government has misled Canada in the record of the case it has provided to back up the arrest warrant..."

melovesproles wrote:

JKR wrote:

The last forty years has been dominated by right wing monetarism. The forty or so years before that were dominated by Keynesianism. With COVID-19 I think we are now likely entering a new era.

I'd say we entered the new era in 2008. The Covid response has been pretty in keeping with the response to the financial crisis: a neo-Keynesianism just for the rich.

Being from BC I date it from 1983. I cut my teeth in organizing and activism as a regional representative for the Solidarity Coalition and the BC Human Rights Coalition. MiniWac started Canada's great slide into the abyss.

On July 7, 1983, Bill Bennett and his Social Credit government, freshly elected to a third successive term in office, unleashed a revolution in British Columbia.

This was a revolution from the right. Fuelled by the radical conservatism of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher and Milton Friedman’s economic neoliberalism, the Socreds took aim at all those elements in society they had never liked. With no advance notice, a total of 26 repressive bills came down the chute in a single day, along with a harsh government restraint budget that dramatically slashed social spending.

Rent controls were abolished. Landlords were given the right to evict tenants without cause. The Human Rights Commission was shut down, its workers fired on the spot. The Employment Standards Branch was killed off. Scrutiny of Crown corporations was wound up, while the government tightened its grip over local school board budgets and community colleges, including course content. And on and on. The worst of the onslaught focused on workers and unions in the public sector. Under Bill 2, they lost the right to negotiate almost anything except wages and benefits, even as wage controls were extended indefinitely. Bill 3, designed to pave the way for a wave of firings, wiped out job security and, incredibly, gave all public sector authorities the power to terminate workers without cause, regardless of seniority. (The first list of government employees to be fired included the names of BC Government Employees Union executive members John Shields and Diane Woods.) This was, indeed, “Black Thursday.”

https://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2018/07/06/Year-BC-Citizens-Workers-Fought-Back/

Climenhaga: Canada has mere hours to free the two Michaels - but that would take courage

https://buff.ly/3trkB2q

"Releasing Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou from Canadian custody and letting her return to China, which is what is required, is certainly the last thing many powerful people in our country's police, security, diplomatic and political inner circles want. So with Spavor expected to go on trial tomorrow in Dandong on the North Korean border, and Kovrig on Monday in Beijing, it's unlikely anything will happen.

Whether the two Michaels are spies as the Chinese government claims or innocent bystanders as Canadians are constantly being t0ld by media and government officials, this leaves the pair in a great game played by two haughty imperial powers that care little about Canada's interests and even less about a couple of Canadians..."

"Chinese courts have a conviction rate of over 99 per cent"

I love how the CBC propaganda piece has this sentence as a stand alone paragraph to set up how unfair the system is. It sounds horrible until you compare it to the US and like in many things they are number one. Japan also has a conviction rate of over 99%. In a properly functioning system it should be the case that you only charge people that you have sufficient evidence with which to convict. So if your investigation end of the process is doing a good job and that is the claim for Japan then it is a bonus not a negative. The spin one puts on any factoid makes all the difference in the world. The US is okay because they include guilty pleas from their plea bargains. Of course if the popular media in the US is to be believed most people get a choice between doing a little penalty for a guilty plea or facing the ridiculous maximums in their system. However in China unlike Japan and the US the high conviction rate is so evil it requires a stand alone paragraph near the beginning of the article to emphasize it.

By 2003, that figure rose to a staggering 99% conviction rate, and as of 2015, the federal conviction rate in the United States was 99.8% percent.

How is the Conviction Rate in the US So High?

It is quite astounding to hear that the federal conviction rate in the US is 99.8%, but that's how it is. The reason is much simpler than you think – the high conviction rate in the US results from defendants pleading guilty to the crimes attributed to them, meaning they give a public confession about their guilt. The guilty plea is a conviction, and since most defendants enter a guilty plea, the conviction rate in the US is very high.

Climenhaga: Canada doesn't need US permission to call China and bring the two Michaels home

https://buff.ly/3vJcOin

"It appears China has thrown Canada an unexpected lifeline, offering us a chance to redeem our relationship with the world's No.2 economy and save the two Michaels...So what is to be done before a verdict is rendered against Spavor and Kovrig and it becomes much more difficult to extract our citizens from China's prison system?

Instead of crossing our fingers and outsourcing their rescue to the United States - which has an obvious interest in leaving them where they are - maybe it's time for Canada to act like the sovereign nation we insist we are and talk to China ourselves, as we were quite capable of doing when our prime minister's father occupied the same office.

Seriously, does Trudeau require the permission of the United States to pick up the phone and ask to speak to the president of China? If he does, we can stop pretending right now to be a sovereign nation.

If we sent Meng to the United States to disappear into its penal gulag, China will naturally pivot to negotiating with her kidnappers. We will be written off as irrelevant by the leader of the world's second largest economy, perhaps soon the largest. In addition to earning the contempt of the world, recent history suggests we would get nothing from the United States for our cooperation except to be taken even more for granted.

So what about it Mr Trudeau? Are you a prime minister or a mouse?"

He certainly acts like the cats of Washington's mouse. But it is an obvious and sensible course of action to be taken and he and our 'sovereignty' should be put to the test to see...

[email protected]

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook & Kens Stone: New Developments in the Meng Case

http://www.gorilla-radio.com/2021/05/21/gorilla-radio-chris-cook-ken-sto...

"In December 2019, Huawei executive Meng Wanshou was intercepted at Vancouver International Airport and ultimately arrested by RCMP. It soon became apparent Meng was taken at the behest of the US, who hoped to use her incarceration as a 'bargaining chip' in negotiation with the Chinese telecommunications giant. This mainly because more than merely a top-tier executive, Meng Wanzhou is also the daughter of Huawei founder, Ren Zhengfei.

Today, two and a half years after her arrest, Meng Wanzhou is still a political captive who, like Julian Assange in Great Britain, awaits extradition orders to the United States.

Ken Stone is a long-time antiwar activist, serving as an executive member of both the Syria Solidarity Movement and Hamilton Coalition to Stop the War. Ken and the Hamilton Coalition have joined forces with online investigative journalism site The Canada Files, and rank and file Canadians upset with the country's legal tradition being so rudely sullied in this case, to pursue a Cross-Country Free Meng Wanzhou Campaign. Last week the webinar 'New Developments in the Meng Case', again addressed this ongoing same point. Ken Stone in the first half..."

Cross Canada Campaign to Free Meng Wanzhou: Panel Discussion - May 20, 2021

https://youtu.be/2XtJlapx5hk

"The Meng Wanzhou extradition hearing has been abruptly suspended at her counsel's request until August 2021. Learn about the new legal developments and the geopolitical context in which Meng was arrested by the Trudeau government in 2018. A key feature of the event will be discussion of the rise in anti-Asian racism in Canada - a result of mainstream media and politcal party demonization of China."

Meng Wanzhou lawyer says extraditing Huawei exec would run contrary to Canadian law

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/meng-wanzhou-story-trump...

"Defence argues 'breadth and height' of abuse by former US president and officials requires stay. 'When before has the head of state interfered in an extradition? When before has an extradition case been the subject of four eminently arguable abuse of process applications?

'To commit this case or permit it to proceed runs contrary to the rule of law,' Richard Peck, QC told the judge. The so-called first branch of abuse involved comments from former US President Donald Trump suggesting he would interfere in the case to get a better trade deal with China.

'That's the very definition of ransom,' Peck told Holmes. 'That's what we're dealing with here..."