Canada cops got Huawei exec’s home security code, court hears

VANCOUVER – An officer revealed yesterday that Canadian police obtained the security code to Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou’s house here – not merely passcodes to her electronic devices, which defence lawyers alleged violated her rights.

Constable Gurvinder Dhaliwal, the federal police officer in charge of securing evidence in the extradition case who assisted in her December 2018 arrest on a US warrant, testified in court that he was given the security code by another Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) officer, but said: “I have no idea where he got that from.”

Meng, Huawei’s chief financial officer, has been for two years fighting extradition to the US, where she faces fraud charges related to the company’s activities in Iran, in breach of US sanctions.

This month’s hearings have heard from police and customs officers involved in her arrest.

Dhaliwal also said he was emailed three days after Meng’s arrest on December 1, 2018 by another RCMP officer, Ben Chang, who asked him to access her electronic devices’ serial numbers and identification codes, to pass on to the US FBI.

Chang has since refused to testify despite being requested as a witness by Meng’s lawyers, a matter they have called “of some concern” with “consequences”.

And, the one email Chang eventually sent to the FBI about Meng’s arrest, according to court filings, was deleted after he retired from RCMP. He has denied providing the FBI with Meng’s device passcodes.

It was not clear what, if anything, Canadian authorities did with the security code to Meng’s house.

A piece of paper with the code written on it, as well as her house keys, were handed over to a person whom Meng called to collect her luggage at the airport here after she was detained.

Meng stayed at the house for several months under strict bail conditions, before moving into another, larger home that she owns here.

Her lawyers contend that Canada violated her rights when she was detained, and searched and interrogated for hours.

The daughter of Huawei’s founder was questioned without a lawyer present and without knowing why, and had to give the passwords to her electronic devices – phones and a laptop – to customs officers, who gave them to federal police.

The passwords were then sent to the FBI, which Meng’s lawyers have latched onto to accuse Canadian police of colluding with the US agency.

Canada has consistently denied abusing Meng’s rights.

The extradition case is scheduled to wrap up next April. – AFP, November 24, 2020