Ottawa (AFP)

Her arrest a year ago has caused an unprecedented crisis between China and Canada: a Chinese leader Huawei is appearing from Monday in Vancouver court to determine if she should be extradited to the United States.

Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of the telecoms giant, was arrested during a stopover at the airport in this western Canadian city, on December 1, 2018 at the request of the United States. The American justice accuses him of having circumvented the American sanctions against Iran and wants to judge it for fraud.

Beijing was quick to react: a few days later, two Canadians were arrested in China and charged with spying. Chinese authorities then froze billions of dollars in imports of Canadian agricultural products. Measures widely regarded in the West as reprisals.

The week of hearings which opens Monday must be devoted to the question of "double criminality": in order to be extradited to the United States, Ms. Meng must be prosecuted there for an offense also existing in Canada.

If Canadian justice decides that the alleged offense has no equivalent in Canada, as his lawyers will argue, Meng Wanzhou could be released quickly. Otherwise, the extradition process will go to a new stage and, with many possibilities of appeal, could take several more years.

A rapid outcome remains possible: the Minister of Justice David Lametti can intervene at any time and order his release, note several experts.

"The Minister of Justice has the power to stop the extradition process at any time," said Gary Botting, a lawyer specializing in extradition matters. This has happened in the past, for humanitarian reasons for example.

"The most obvious way to end it is to release it," he adds. For him, as for many political leaders, Canada was "naive" in agreeing to sacrifice its own interests to honor its extradition agreement with the United States.

"It was foreseeable that China would not be happy, and Canada could have avoided the fallout" from this arrest, insists Mr. Botting.

- "Hostage Diplomacy" -

The United States accuses Ms. Meng of lying to HSBC bank about the relationship between Huawei and Sky Com, a subsidiary that sold telecommunications equipment in Tehran. HSBC was thus exposed to unwittingly violating American sanctions against Iran, according to the United States.

"Put simply, there is evidence that it deceived HSBC into continuing to provide banking services to Huawei," said the prosecutor in his case. These accusations of fraud exist in Canada, and justify his extradition to the United States, according to him.

The CFO, who lives on parole in her luxurious Vancouver home, has always denied these allegations. His many lawyers should argue that their client cannot be extradited because the violation of sanctions against Iran is not a crime in Canada, where these sanctions do not exist.

Meng Wanzhou's father, Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei, said in a Globe and Mail interview that his daughter was "used as a pawn" by the United States in their arm wrestling with Huawei, whom they suspected of spying for the benefit of Beijing.

In Canada, several voices, including that of former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, rose to ask Justin Trudeau to release Meng Wanzhou, as part of a sort of "prisoner swap" with Beijing.

The current Prime Minister has always hid behind the independence of Canadian justice. In addition, such a decision would risk legitimizing the "hostage diplomacy" implemented by Beijing, according to several experts consulted by AFP.

It could also further complicate relations between Trudeau's Canada and Donald Trump's United States.

"I do not think the United States would ask questions if Canada refused to extradite him," said Botting. "Canada found itself involved in all of this against its will, but frankly the United States doesn't care."

© 2020 AFP