The chief financial officer of China’s tech giant Huawei is suing Canada over her high-profile arrest.
Meng Wanzhou was held in December at Vancouver airport, at the request of the US, on suspicion of fraud and breaching American sanctions on Iran.
Meng, the daughter of Huawei’s founder, is now suing the Canadian government, its border agency and the national police force, for “serious breaches” of her civil rights, it emerged today.
She claims they detained, searched and interrogated her before telling her she was under arrest.
Meng, who is on bail in Vancouver, is wanted on fraud charges that she misled banks about the company’s business dealings in Iran.
China has attacked her detention as a “political incident”. She denies all the charges against her.
The lawsuit, filed on Friday, came on the same day that Canada officially launched her extradition process to the US.
The suit alleges that instead of immediately arresting her, authorities interrogated Meng “under the guise of a routine customs” examination and used the opportunity to “compel her to provide evidence and information”.
The claim states: “This case concerns a deliberate and premeditated effort on the part of the defendant officers to obtain evidence and information from the plaintiff in a manner which they knew constituted serious violations of the plaintiff’s rights.”
She is due in court on Wednesday to set a date for her extradition proceedings to start. It could be several months or even years before her case is resolved.
Meng’s arrest set off a diplomatic furore and severely strained Canadian relations with China, with former Canadian diplomat Michael Kovrig and Canadian entrepreneur Michael Spavor detained on December 10 in an apparent attempt to pressure Canada to release Meng.
A Chinese court also sentenced a Canadian to death in a sudden retrial, overturning a 15-year prison term handed down earlier.
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