Canada justice lawyer says Huawei CFO lawyers ignore facts

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) — The defense team for a senior Chinese executive fighting extradition to the U.S. have offered an “alternative narrative” that ignores the the case against her, a Canadian Justice Department lawyer told a hearing Wednesday

Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer for Huawei’s Technologies and daughter of its founder, was arrested at Vancouver’s airport in late 2018 at the request of U.S. authorities. Her arrest infuriated Beijing, which sees her case as a political move designed to prevent China’s rise.

The U.S. wants Meng extradited to face fraud charges, alleging she committed fraud by misleading the HSBC bank about the company’s business dealings in Iran. It accuses Huawei of using a Hong Kong shell company called Skycom to sell equipment to Iran in violation of U.S. sanctions.

Defense lawyers have argued the case against Meng is flawed and there isn’t enough evidence to justify her extradition.

But in his final submissions, Justice Department lawyer Robert Frater disputed defense claims there there is no evidence Meng made any misrepresentations that put the bank at risk of violating sanctions.

By not disclosing Huawei’s true relationship with Skycom, Meng put HSBC at risk of violating U.S. sanctions against Iran, he said.

“HSBC was deprived of a fair opportunity to take the action it needed to take,” Frater told Associate Chief Justice Heather Holmes.

He said Meng was honest in parts of her meeting with an HSBC executive, but she didn’t tell “the whole truth and nothing but the truth."

Frater said the defense is trying to “blame the victim” in saying it was the bank’s decision to transfer money from Skycom through the U.S.

Meng, who attended the hearing wearing an electronic monitoring device on her ankle, followed the...