Final arguments begin in Meng case

After five days of extensive arguments between Meng Wanzhou's defense team and the Crown representing the United States, the formal extradition hearing of the Huawei executive started on Wednesday in Vancouver.

More than 30 abuse of process claims, including political interference by then-US president Donald Trump after Meng's arrest in December 2018, have been raised by her legal team during the sessions in the Supreme Court of British Columbia. The Crown lawyer has denied any misconduct.

The Chinese embassy in Washington said in a statement on Thursday that Meng's arrest is a typical case of arbitrary detention.

"Ms Meng has never violated any Canadian law, but has been detained by Canada until today. The Canadian side is acting openly as an accomplice to the US and this is exactly an example of arbitrary detention for exercising leverage over a foreign government," it said.

It urged the US to respect the rule of law and China's judicial sovereignty, and unconditionally revoke Meng's extradition request.

On Tuesday, a lawyer for Canada's attorney general (the Crown) said Trump's intervention in Meng's case was "exaggerated". Robert Frater was responding to the four branches of abuse of process and the application for remedy submitted by the defense.

However, the defense team said it was clear that Trump's remarks about the case have reduced Meng to a bargaining chip in the trade conflict between the US and China. In addition, the US government has never disavowed Trump's remarks.

Coming days

"So clearly, Trump's remarks constituted an abuse of process,"Meng's lawyer Tony Paisana told the judge on Tuesday.

The Crown lawyer said the only state misconduct was a mistake by Canada Border Services Agency officials in giving Meng's electronic passwords to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. But the Crown said it was "unintentional".

The defense team stated that systematic breaches exist in the case, so the only feasible remedy is to stay the extradition proceedings.

The defense is expected to make its final arguments in the coming days, before the hearings wrap up on Aug 20. A decision is not expected for months. In the event of an appeal, the proceedings could take several more years.

Meng, 49, is accused of defrauding HSBC by falsely misrepresenting links between Huawei and Skycom, a subsidiary that sold telecoms equipment to Iran, putting the British bank at risk of violating US sanctions against Teheran as it continued to clear US dollar transactions for Huawei.

If transferred to the US for trial and convicted, Meng could face more than 30 years in prison.

Wenran Jiang, a former senior fellow at the University of British Columbia and the University of Alberta, told China Daily that if Meng were extradited to the US, there is no doubt that Canada-China relations would suffer a new low from their already deteriorated state over the past few years. "Meng's case was clearly politicized by the Trump administration from the very beginning. By not ending the legal process even though the case was politicized, the minister in fact made a political decision to keep the case going,"Jiang said.

Agencies via Xinhua contributed to this story.