Lawyers for Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou will try to challenge her extradition to the United States in January 2020, the company said in a statement Thursday after her legal team appeared in a Canadian court to set future court dates.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corp. reported that Meng's extradition hearing would begin in January 2020 and that the case was expected to conclude by October of that year.
Meng, 47, the daughter of Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd.'s billionaire founder Ren Zhengfei, was arrested at Vancouver's airport in December on a U.S. warrant and is fighting extradition on charges that she misled global banks about Huawei's relationship with a company operating in Iran.
Meng, free on bail in Vancouver, did not appear in court.
In a statement, Huawei said there was no evidence Meng had misled any banks and that her alleged actions were not a crime in Canada. It also said U.S. President Donald Trump's comments showed the case against Meng was "guided by political and financial considerations, not the rule of law."
Her attorneys are seeking a stay of extradition proceedings on several grounds, including allegations that Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) officers delayed Meng's arrest to extract evidence under the guise of a routine immigration check before she was arrested by the Royal Canadian
Mounted Police (RCMP).
They made similar allegations in a civil lawsuit in March.
In a written defense filed Monday, government attorneys argued that Meng's suit should be dismissed.
The government argued that CBSA officers acted "lawfully and in good faith" when they interviewed Meng and examined her luggage "to determine if she was admissible to Canada and if there were any customs issues with her goods."
Meng's suit claimed CBSA officers opened and viewed the contents of her electronic devices, in violation of her right to privacy. The government said CBSA officers asked Meng for phone passwords and then wrote them down on a piece of paper, which the RCMP took when it arrested Meng. It said the RCMP has not examined the contents of Meng's devices.
Diplomatic relations between Canada and China turned icy after Meng's arrest. China arrested two Canadian citizens, charging them with espionage. It also blocked imports of Canadian canola seed.
