US Justice Department reportedly ready to request Huawei CFO's extradition from Canada

Recently, Huawei's chief financial officer (CFO), Meng Wangzhou, had been detained in Canada. This nation's officials had done so in response to a request from the United States (US) to do the same. Meng, who is also closely related to her company's founder, Ren Zhengfei, has been held in relation to suspicions of flouting US sanctions imposed on dealing with the nation of Iran.

A rew report on this situation indicate that the US' Department of Justice (DoJ) intends to send a formal request that may result in Meng's extradition from Canada to its jurisdiction. If this is indeed the case, the DoJ has a deadline of 60 days since the Huawei executive's arrest (which falls on January 30) to act on its plans. The Chinese government has questioned the validity of the US' case against the Huawei executive, and has pressured Canada to release Meng. Since then, China has sentenced a Canadian citizen in its country to death over pre-existing drug charges, and has detained 2 more. However, it denies that these actions are connected to Meng's predicament.

A Chinese foreign ministry ministry spokesperson, Hua Chunying, asserts that Canada has made a “serious mistake” in this matter, and that it and the US had "arbitrarily abused their bilateral extradition treaty to seriously infringe upon a Chinese citizen’s security and legal rights". Hua was also quoted as saying that the US had been “strongly urged” to rescind Meng's detention, and to refrain from making a formal extradition request. The representative also noted that China would naturally react to the other nation's next moves, but did not specify the manner of this response.

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