VANCOUVER: Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou is set to return to a Vancouver court on Tuesday, where her lawyers will build on their arguments against the US extradition request that they say is based on sanctions violation and not bank fraud.

Meng, 47, arrived in a Vancouver courtroom on Monday for the first phase of a hearing that will last at least four days, during which her legal team argued that “double criminality” was at the heart of the case, as China repeated its call for Canada to release her.

The United States has charged Meng with bank fraud, and accused her of misleading HSBC Holdings Plc about Huawei Techno­logies Co Ltd’s business in Iran.

Court proceedings show the United States issued the arrest warrant, which Canada acted on in December 2018, because it believes Meng covered up attempts by Huawei-linked companies to sell equipment to Iran, breaking US sanctions against the country.

On Tuesday, the defence is expected to answer British Columbia Supreme Court judge Heather J Holmes’s question whether Meng’s alleged bank fraud against HSBC could be construed as a fraud if it had happened in Canada.

Published in Dawn, January 22nd, 2020