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Attorneys for Meng, who is also the daughter of the Chinese tech company’s billionaire founder, claim that US and Canadian officials orchestrated a “covert criminal investigation” to unlawfully detain, search and interrogate her, according to court documents.
Meng was arrested at Vancouver International Airport on December 1 and detained by Canadian authorities on behalf of the US government. She was released on $7.5 million bail nearly two weeks after her arrest, after agreeing to surrender her passports, live in one of two homes she owns in the city and pay for an around-the-clock security detail.
The attorneys claim that Canada and the United States “coordinated a strategy” to “intentionally delay” Meng’s arrest so that Canadian border agents could hold her “under the pretense of a routine immigration check.” That allowed border agents to gather evidence from Meng “for the benefit” of the FBI and other US authorities, according to court documents.
Meng’s attorneys claim that Canadian authorities deceived Meng as to the nature of her detention and abused their search powers so they could collect evidence for the FBI.
“This pattern of serious misconduct, if established, would support an abuse of process justifying the remedy of a stay of these extradition proceedings,” Meng’s attorneys wrote. They also are seeking the disclosure of documents related to her detention, including emails and texts from several Canadian police officers, border agents and members of the US Department of Justice.