US to close charges against Huawei CFO
US justice is preparing to definitively close the proceedings against the financial director of Huawei, Meng Wanzhou, at the heart of a major crisis between China and Canada, according to court documents consulted by AFP.
Pursuant to an agreement reached in September 2021, prosecutors this week asked for the charges to be dropped against the daughter of the Huawei founder, who spent three years under house arrest in Vancouver. “In the absence of known violations of the terms of the agreement, the government is asking to revoke the indictment” against Meng Wanzhou, they wrote to a federal judge in New York who must formally ratify this request.
On December 1, 2018, during a stopover in Canada, the head of Huawei was arrested at the request of the American authorities. Charged with “bank fraud”, Meng Wanzhou was accused of having lied to circumvent American sanctions against Iran. An offense punishable by more than 30 years in prison in the United States, to which she was threatened with extradition. A few days after his arrest, China in turn arrested two Canadians and accused them of espionage, a measure then widely perceived as retaliation.
Meng Wanzhou and the two Canadians only returned to their respective countries after the conclusion of an agreement between American justice and the head of Huawei, in which she admitted having made “false statements”. In exchange, the United States had suspended the charges against her until December 1, 2022 – thus authorizing Canada to release her – and agreed to drop them thereafter if the terms of the agreement were respected.
