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Federal court upholds confidentiality of documents in Meng Wanzhou case

Aug 25, 2020 | 2:28 PM

OTTAWA — The legal team for a Huawei executive facing extradition to the United States has lost its battle to have the contents of six confidential documents released to them.

Meng Wanzhou’s defence team argued in Federal Court that the redacted documents would support its position that Meng suffered an abuse of process during her arrest at Vancouver’s airport in 2018.

Meng is wanted in the United States on fraud charges, which she and Huawei deny.

In a ruling released today, Justice Catherine Kane says the court found the information contained in the documents is not relevant to the allegations of abuse described by Meng’s legal team.

She says the attorney general of Canada and a friend of the court submitted a joint proposal that included the lifting of some redactions, but disclosing the remainder would hurt national security or international relations.

The six documents in question include situational reports by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, an email reporting information provided by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigations, handwritten notes and operational notes.

“The information does not provide the ‘missing pieces of the puzzle’ Ms. Meng seeks,” Kane writes.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 25, 2020.

The Canadian Press