Huawei CFO's legal team wants US extradition case thrown out

Lawyers for Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou say US authorities and HSBC are trying to mislead a Canadian court in her extradition case by providing a "grossly inaccurate" summary of the evidence and that the case should be thrown out.

The lawyers made the remarks in a memo made public after a hearing on Monday to discuss management of the case.

In the memo, Meng's lawyers said the allegations of "deliberate and/or reckless misstatements of fact and material omissions" in the official case record are so serious proceedings should be stopped.

Meng was accused of lying to an HSBC executive in Hong Kong in August 2013 about Huawei's relationship with Skycom, a company which the US government charged violated its sanctions on Iran.

But the defense team said that the summary of the PPT provided to the court is "grossly misleading" because it left out critical disclosures Meng made in the PPT regarding Huawei's relationship with Skycom.

They argued the omissions show Meng gave the bank the facts it needed to assess the risk of doing business with Huawei.

Also, Meng's lawyers questioned the claim that only "junior" HSBC employees knew about Huawei and Skycom's relationship.

"It is inconceivable that any decision to modify or terminate HSBC's relationship with Skycom or Huawei would not have been reviewed by the most senior management at HSBC," Meng's lawyers said.

New hearing next week

Zhang Teng jun, assistant research fellow at the Beijing-based China Institute of International Studies, said Meng's case is "essentially a political game the US government has been playing to derail China's technology development… the US government …cannot accept (Huawei) as a global leader in 5G technology."

China restated on Monday that the arrest is a political conspiracy by the US.

"The documents fully exposed the political plot of the United States to deliberately suppress Chinese high-tech enterprises and Huawei," said Zhao Lijian, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, adding that Canada played the role of a US "accomplice".

Last month, the British Columbia Supreme Court ruled that US extradition proceedings against her satisfied the "double criminality" test. The Chinese embassy in Ottawa warned Canada "not to go further down the wrong path".