The Canada police officer who arrested Huawei's chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou as she stepped off a flight from Hong Kong in December 2018 told her lawyers he didn't hear any "alarm bells" when ordered to detain her.
This was in spite of his knowledge she was the owner of two properties in Canada, he testified.
On the second day of her extradition hearing Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. lawyers resumed witness testimony in a Vancouver court asking why aspects of Meng's detention didn't set off "alarm bells" to the arresting federal police officer.
Royal Canadian Mounted Police Constable Winston Yep said: "That did not cross my mind...I read (the affidavit)...but I can't explain why that didn't cross my mind."
He had earlier said in evidence Meng had no ties to Canada. However, Canada Border Services Agency officials had earlier told Yep that Meng owned two homes in Vancouver, evidence showed.
Yep said he was asked by the U.S. to arrest Meng and prevent her "remotely" erasing data from her mobile telephone and laptop computer.
The officer's testimony is the first of many Meng's lawyers plan to support their claims that Canada and U.S. authorities violated her rights before and after her arrest.
The 48-year-old executive and the daughter of Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei was arrested in Vancouver in December 2018 while she was changing planes. The arrest was in response to a warrant issued by a New York court in August over fraud charges filed against her.
Meng was charged in the U.S. for allegedly misleading HSBC and other intuitions over Huawei's business with Iran. The alleged fraud caused the banks to break U.S. sanction laws. Meng denies all allegations and is fighting to halt her extradition to the U.S.
Meng's lawyers have accused U.S. and Canada of "conspiring together" to force information from the executive that would be used against her. Canada authorities deny the allegations and have presented affidavits from police officers involved in the arrest.
Meng's lawyers said later that Yep's recollection of the events during the arrest was "very sparse." They highlighted lapses in the affidavits and witness accounts of officers involved in the arrest and said a proper chronological account of the process was required by Canada extradition law.
Meng's arrest in Canada and her ensuing house arrest strained the relationship between the country and China in the following years. In retaliation, China arrested Canadian citizens Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig on suspicions of espionage.
Five days of testimony are expected before the British Columbia Supreme Court after which the hearings will be adjourned until February when Meng's counsel are expected to argue that U.S. President Donald Trump "poisoned" her chance of a fair trial when he said shortly after her arrest that he might exchange Meng for trade concessions from China.
Huawei said it would concentrate initially on how Trump and his administration ordered Canada authorities "to engage in a deceptive and improper search - thereby violating a court order and Meng's charter rights," CNET News quoted Meng's legal team as saying.
Meng's lawyers requested this week's evidentiary hearing to convince Justice Heather Holmes that Canada's federal police and border agents violated Meng's rights in questioning her and searching her devices in the three hours after she disembarked from a flight from Hong Kong but before her arrest.
They will also say that seizing and turning over the contents of her electronic devices to the FBI was itself a violation of Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms, a report from The Associated Press said.
