Indian envoy warns of 'big red line,' days after charges laid in Nijjar case
India's envoy to Canada insists relations between the two countries are positive overall, despite what he describes as 'a lot of noise.'
The United States closed the book Friday on the legal saga of Meng Wanzhou, the Chinese tech executive whose arrest in Canada in 2018 triggered a global standoff with foreign-policy implications that reverberate to this day.
A federal judge in New York formally dismissed the last remaining indictment against Huawei's chief financial officer after prosecutors agreed Meng had abided by the terms of her deferred prosecution agreement.
"It is hereby ordered that the third superseding indictment in the above-captioned matter as to the defendant Wanzhou Meng is hereby dismissed with prejudice," District Judge Ann Donnelly said in a written decision.
The order came four years after Meng was first detained in Vancouver in December 2018 as part of a controversial U.S. extradition request that dragged Canada into the middle of an intractable legal dispute with China.
It's the final stage of the agreement, or DPA, that saw Meng released from custody in September 2021, nearly three years after she was arrested at the behest of the U.S. to face fraud charges related to American sanctions against Iran.
Prosecutors accused Meng and Huawei of stealing secrets and using Skycom, a Hong Kong communications firm, to sell tech equipment to Iran in defiance of sanctions under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.
Her detention quickly spiralled into a tense, protracted three-way dispute after two Canadian nationals, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, were arrested in China in an apparent act of retaliation.
Meng, the daughter of Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei, pleaded not guilty to all charges as part of the agreement. In exchange, she agreed to a statement of facts acknowledging, among other things, that Skycom -- which she had claimed was a partner with Huawei -- was essentially a wholly owned subsidiary.
The agreement made it clear she would be in violation of the deal if she tried to contradict or deny the statement, which would then be admissible in any future court proceedings.
U.S. attorney Carolyn Pokorny filed the request to dismiss the indictment Thursday, four years to the day after Meng's detention in Vancouver.
"In the absence of information that (Meng) has violated any terms of the DPA through Dec. 1, 2022 … the government respectfully moves to dismiss the third superseding indictment in this case," Pokorny wrote.
Spavor and Kovrig, who came to be known around the world as "the two Michaels," were freed by Chinese authorities at almost the precise moment that Meng was being flown home.
China has long denied any link between the two cases, despite the timing of both the initial arrests and their eventual release.
Their detention complicated Canada's efforts to enunciate a position on China in general and Huawei in particular as a potential national security threat.
In May, the federal Liberal government announced it was banning the company and another Chinese vendor, ZTE, from participating in the development of Canada's next-generation mobile networks.
Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly finally unveiled Canada's Indo-Pacific strategy on Sunday, in the very city where Meng was first detained. The Liberals had first promised it back in 2015.
It described China as "an increasingly disruptive global power" and included plans for an international summit on "arbitrary detention," as well as efforts to draft new efforts to push back on human rights violations and "economic coercion."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 2, 2022.
India's envoy to Canada insists relations between the two countries are positive overall, despite what he describes as 'a lot of noise.'
With Donald Trump sitting just feet away, Stormy Daniels testified Tuesday at the former president's hush money trial about a sexual encounter the porn actor says they had in 2006 that resulted in her being paid to keep silent during the presidential race 10 years later.
The U.S. paused a shipment of bombs to Israel last week over concerns that Israel was approaching a decision on launching a full-scale assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah against the wishes of the U.S.
Footage from dozens of security cameras in the area of Drake’s Bridle Path mansion could be the key to identifying the suspect responsible for shooting and seriously injuring a security guard outside the rapper’s sprawling home early Tuesday morning, a former Toronto homicide detective says.
A chicken farmer near Mattawa made an 'eggstraordinary' find Friday morning when she discovered one of her hens laid an egg close to three times the size of an average large chicken egg.
Susan Buckner, best known for playing peppy Rydell High School cheerleader Patty Simcox in the 1978 classic movie musical 'Grease,' has died. She was 72.
Accused killer Jeremy Skibicki could have a challenging time convincing a judge that he is not criminally responsible for the deaths of four Indigenous women, a legal analyst says.
A Calgary bylaw requiring businesses to charge a minimum bag fee and only provide single-use items when requested has officially been tossed.
Two Nova Scotia men are dead after a boat they were travelling in sank in the Annapolis River in Granville Centre, N.S., on Monday.
An Ontario man says he paid more than $7,700 for a luxury villa he found on a popular travel website -- but the listing was fake.
Whether passionate about Poirot or hungry for Holmes, Winnipeg mystery obsessives have had a local haunt for over 30 years in which to search out their latest page-turners.
Eighty-two-year-old Susan Neufeldt and 90-year-old Ulrich Richter are no spring chickens, but their love blossomed over the weekend with their wedding at Pine View Manor just outside of Rosthern.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A mother goose and her goslings caused a bit of a traffic jam on a busy stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway near Vancouver Saturday.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.