Vancouver (AFP)

Canadian government lawyers on Wednesday pleaded bank "fraud" to justify a possible extradition to the United States of a leader of the telecommunications giant Huawei, on the third day of a week of hearings in Vancouver.

Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of Huawei and daughter of the group's founder, Ren Zhengfei, is accused by the American authorities of fraud and of having circumvented the sanctions of Washington against Iran.

His arrest at the end of 2018 at Vancouver airport, at the request of the United States, caused an unprecedented crisis between Canada and China.

"Fraud is at the heart of this case," prosecutor Robert Frater said on Wednesday to justify the extradition process.

"Lying to a bank to obtain financial services is fraud," he said in an attempt to counter the claims of the defense, which on the contrary believes that the essential elements of fraud cannot be established.

To obtain extradition, prosecutors must demonstrate "double jeopardy": the facts alleged against Meng Wanzhou by the American courts must also be punishable if they took place in Canada.

Washington accuses Ms. Meng of lying to HSBC bank about the relationship between Huawei and Skycom, a subsidiary that sold telecom equipment to Iran, which exposed the bank to a possible violation of US sanctions against Tehran. The applicant has always denied these allegations.

Ms. Meng told HSBC executives in 2013 that Huawei no longer owned Skycom and that she had resigned from the board.

During the first two days of the hearing, the defense argued that the facts alleged against Ms. Meng in the United States have no equivalent in Canada. For them, Canada - which had not taken the same sanctions against Iran at the material time - is asked to apply these sanctions in fact.

For the Crown, on the contrary, the sanctions simply provide the context "to better understand why the economic interests of HSBC were at risk".

"Pursuing a relationship with Huawei / Skycom has also exposed HSBC to new civil and criminal sanctions," he said, noting that the bank has already paid fines for violating sanctions when doing business with Cuba, Libya , Iran, Sudan and Burma.

© 2020 AFP