The Meng Wanzhou extradition case continues today as the argument comes to a crucial point: The refusal to testify by a retired RCMP officer who’s seen as central to the case.
The officer - Staff Sgt. Ben Chang - was the key police officer who coordinated the collecting and alleged sharing of Meng’s electronic device serial numbers, defence lawyer Scott Fenton argued.
Chang has since retired and is currently working and living in Macau, a Chinese Special Administrative region. He has refused to testify, providing instead an affidavit to the Crown stating that Meng’s serial numbers were not shared with the FBI.
“Certainly, there’s shock value in the fact that a police officer would refused to be cross-examined,” Fenton said. “... [Cross-examination] is appropriate and central to the [legal] adversary system.”
Macau, under Chinese rule, has no extradition agreement with Canada, meaning Canadian courts cannot serve Chang with an order to appear or otherwise compel the former police officer.
Meng contends that her devices, passcodes and serial numbers were collected illegally by border agents under the guise of an entry exam at Vancouver International Airport in December 2018. The info was then passed on to the RCMP - a move Canadian officials said was a mistake but argued to be intentional by Meng.
The defence also noted the acute lack of RCMP and CBSA notes on the arrest procedure as evidence that officials tried to cover up the seizure of the devices and associated info.
Fenton said the defence is asking the court to essentially throw out Chang’s affidavit - which stated no serial numbers were shared with the FBI - as reliable evidence. The defence is also arguing for adverse inference - for the court to assume Chang, if cross-examined in court, would not be able to support his position in the affidavit.
The defence lawyer also brought into question the fact that Chang’s RCMP emails were all destroyed within 90 days of the officer’s June 2019 retirement. Fenton said the move was especially shocking because the defence expressed concerns to Crown counsel days after Meng’s arrest that the inter-agency communications are preserved for evidence.
Fenton called the fact that Chang’s emails were not kept was an “unacceptable, unexplained negligence.”
“The [RCMP] system was made to fail,” Fenton said, calling the problem a "systematic one" rather than one that's limited to Chang's email account with the RCMP in particuar. “... There are no backups. There were no steps taken to see if there was any relevant information [in Chang’s emails].”
In the afternoon, Meng lawyer Richard Peck tackled the issue of a lack of note-taking from both RCMP and CBSA officials during the arrest process.
Peck noted, from the CBSA note-taking point-of-view, a three-hour border examination with Meng having her devices and passcodes seized rendered almost no notes - with one officer's records only taking down the fact that the officer "talked to Meng Wanzhou."
The defence lawyer describe such note-taking on the arrest process to a case precedent where a similar occurrence was "akin to destroying evidence."
"It disadvantages all of us in our work towards the truth," Peck said. "...It’s a dereliction of duties. It’s a travesty. An inferior imitation of a notebook."
Peck further noted there was no notes originating from a 9:30 a.m. meeting between the RCMP and the CBSA on the day of Meng's arrest. The defence alleges it was at that meeting where the RCMP decided to change its plans from arresting Meng as soon as she got off the plane to letting the CBSA examine her - and secure her devices - first.
"The notes make it appear that the RCMP was not involved until the very end," Peck said. "... You wouldn’t know that Ms. Meng's electronic devices have been seized. You wouldn't know that they were placed in Mylar bags. You wouldn't know the passwords were shared with the RCMP."
The hearings continue this week.
