Meng Wanzhou seeks disclosure of arrest documents

Lawyers for Meng Wanzhou, Huawei’s Chief Financial Officer, today applied to the Supreme Court of British Columbia for the disclosure of documents relating to her 2018 arrest, which they say was an abuse of process. It is her legal team’s position that the documents sought will support the contention that Ms Meng was the victim of a conspiracy between Canadian and US officials.

While some of the documents have already been released to the defence, they had been heavily redacted, and others have been withheld in their entirety by the Attorney General on the grounds that they are covered by legal privilege. The defence argue that Canadian case law establishes that in the case of a claim of abuse of process, privilege should not be used to hide misconduct and so should be waived.

Arguments relating to 37 specified documents are expected to continue throughout the week but, while today’s hearing was in open court, the remainder will be a closed hearing.