Agreement with the US judiciary: Huawei manager Meng is released

Huawei’s CFO Meng has been under house arrest in Canada since 2018. But thanks to a deal with the US judiciary, the Chinese can now leave the country. Her arrest three years ago put a massive strain on US-China relations.

The financial director of Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei, Meng Wanzhou, accused by the US, is at large: a Canadian judge ended the extradition proceedings against Meng at a brief court hearing in Vancouver and ordered her detention conditions lifted. She can now leave Canada after almost three years and return to China.

Meng’s attorneys were previously able to negotiate some sort of probation with the US judiciary in a New York federal court. The solution is a so-called deferred prosecution, in which a defendant has to agree to certain conditions in exchange for the Justice Department ultimately dropping the case.

In the case of Meng, both sides agreed that the proceedings against the manager should initially be put on hold and later discontinued. Meng undertook, among other things, not to contradict the presentation of individual facts by the US side. You are in a multi-page “fact-finding” that was initially not made public. If Meng adheres to the conditions, the allegations against the top manager of Huawei could be dropped in December 2022.

Meng resisted extradition

Meng, the daughter of the Huawei company founder, was arrested in Canada in early December 2018 at the request of the United States. The United States specifically accused Meng of misrepresenting Huawei’s relationship with tech company Skycom in a 2013 presentation to UK bank HSBC, which put the bank at risk of violating US sanctions on Iran. Huawei and Meng deny this. Earlier talks about an agreement with the prosecutors failed, according to US media reports, among other things because Meng did not want to admit any wrongdoing.

Meng defends himself in the lengthy process against extradition to the USA. She had always protested her innocence and accused the authorities of violating her rights when she was arrested. She also declared herself innocent in court yesterday. Meng’s lawyers described the proceedings against her as flawed.

Two Canadians in custody

Meng’s arrest created a serious diplomatic crisis between China and Canada. Canada and western states accuse Beijing of “hostage diplomacy” in connection with the “hostage diplomacy” case: a few days after Meng’s arrest, the Chinese authorities arrested two Canadians who were being tried for “espionage”.

Huawei is one of the world’s largest telecommunications equipment manufacturers and a leader in 5G technology. Meng is the oldest daughter of the Huawei company founder Ren Zhengfei. The US in particular accuses Huawei of being too close to the Chinese authorities and sees the group as a threat to their cybersecurity. There are also fears of this kind in Germany.