WASHINGTON — The United States on Friday closed the book on the legal saga of Meng Wanzhou, the Chinese tech executive whose arrest in Canada in 2018 sparked a global standoff with foreign policy implications that reverberate to this day.
A federal judge in New York has formally dismissed the last remaining indictment against Huawei’s chief financial officer after prosecutors agreed Meng complied with the terms of his deferred prosecution agreement.
“It is hereby ordered that the third replacement indictment in the above-noted matter involving the accused Wanzhou Meng is hereby dismissed with prejudice,” District Judge Ann Donnelly said in a written ruling.
The order came four years after Meng was first detained in Vancouver in December 2018 in connection with a controversial US extradition request that embroiled Canada in the midst of an intractable legal dispute. with China.
It was the final step in the deal, or DPA, which saw Meng released in September 2021, nearly three years after she was arrested at the behest of the United States to face fraud charges related to US sanctions. against Iran.
Prosecutors accused Meng and Huawei of stealing secrets and using Skycom, a Hong Kong communications company, to sell tech equipment to Iran in defiance of sanctions under the Economic Powers Act international emergencies.
His detention quickly escalated into a tense and protracted three-way dispute after two Canadian nationals, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, were arrested in China in an apparent act of retaliation.
Meng, the daughter of Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei, has pleaded not guilty to all charges in the deal. In exchange, she accepted a statement of facts acknowledging, among other things, that Skycom – which she claimed was a partner of Huawei – was essentially a wholly owned subsidiary.
The agreement made it clear that she would violate the agreement if she attempted to contradict or deny the statement, which would then be admissible in any future legal proceedings.
U.S. attorney Carolyn Pokorny filed the motion to dismiss the indictment on Thursday, four years to the day after Meng was detained in Vancouver.
“In the absence of information that (Meng) violated the terms of the DPA through December 1, 2022, the government respectfully moves to dismiss the third replacement indictment in this case,” Pokorny wrote.
Spavor and Kovrig, known worldwide as “the two Michaels”, were released by Chinese authorities almost at the exact moment Meng was flown home.
China has long denied any connection between the two cases, despite the timing of the initial arrests and their eventual release.
Their detention has complicated Canada’s efforts to state a position on China in general and Huawei in particular as a potential national security threat.
In May, the federal Liberal government announced that it was banning the company and another Chinese supplier, ZTE, from participating in the development of next-generation mobile networks in Canada.
Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly finally unveiled Canada’s Indo-Pacific strategy on Sunday, in the very city where Meng was first detained. The Liberals first promised it in 2015.
It described China as “an increasingly disruptive global power” and included plans for an international summit on “arbitrary detention”, as well as efforts to craft new efforts to push back against human rights abuses and “economic coercion”.
This report from The Canadian Press was first published on December 2, 2022.