Scott Kirkland, an officer with the Canada Border Services
Agency (CBSA), told a Vancouver court on Wednesday he was
worried about allegations being brought of potential civil
rights violations if the agency intercepted and interviewed Meng
before her arrest by Canadian police.
Meng, 48, was arrested at Vancouver International Airport in
December 2018 while on a layover bound for Mexico. The United
States charged her with bank fraud, accusing her of misleading
HSBC about Huawei Technologies Co Ltd's business dealings in
Iran and causing the bank to break U.S. sanctions.
She has said she is innocent and is fighting the charges from
Vancouver, where she is under house arrest in her home in
Shaughnessy, one of the wealthiest neighbourhoods in Canada.
Meng's lawyers have argued that abuses of process occurred in
the three hours between when she was intercepted by CBSA
officers and her arrest by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP),
when she had no legal representation.
The officer who arrested her, RCMP Constable Winston Yep,
testified over Monday, Tuesday and part of Wednesday, before
Kirkland took the stand.
Yep insisted that the RCMP stayed in their lane and did not
direct the CBSA in its investigation of Meng.
Prosecutors for the Canadian government have tried to prove that
Meng's arrest was by the book, and any lapses in due process
should not impact the validity of her extradition.
Meng's arrest caused diplomatic relations between Ottawa and
Beijing to become rocky. Soon after her detention, China
arrested Canadian citizens Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig on
espionage charges.
The witness testimony, expected to last until Friday, is
focusing on the second of three branches of abuses of process
that Meng's lawyers claim took place, specifically during her
arrest.
Meng's extradition hearings are scheduled to wrap up in April
2021, although the potential for appeals mean the case could
drag on for years.
(Reporting by Moira Warburton in Toronto; Editing by Denny
Thomas and Grant McCool)
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