“With respect, we urge you to focus on the facts and the law and leave the politics to the politicians,” Robert Frater, a Crown lawyer, said urging Associate Chief Justice Heather Holmes to ignore the “geopolitical winds swirling around” Huawei’s Meng Wanzhou’s extradition case.
Frater’s comments came after Meng’s legal team claimed that Trump’s words 10 days after her arrest at Vancouver's airport in December 2018 represented a threat. He said that he would “certainly intervene” in the case to get a better deal in trade talks with China. Meng’s lawyers allege Trump’s comments constitute an abuse of process.
“Everyone in this courtroom knows that the elephant in the room in this case has always been the geopolitical winds that swirl around it," Frater told the judge.
"We're confident that when you look at the facts and apply the law, you will dismiss this motion."
Meng’s lawyer Richard Peck argued that the US government was trying to “debilitate, if not destroy, Huawei” by claiming that the Chinese vendor’s 5G wireless technology was “an existential threat”. Peck noted that in February 2020, then-U. S. attorney general William Barr said the stakes could not be higher and likened the race to the Cold War.
The court have heard the first in four branches of abuse of process arguments ahead of the actual extradition or committal hearing in May.
