Lawyers acting on behalf of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou have laid out claims alleging abuse of process by the United States, the FBI, the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) and the RCMP in connection with her extradition case.

They argue that the extradition proceedings against the executive should be stayed. And U.S. President Donald Trump’s own words are cited as evidence of that alleged abuse.

The allegations are laid out in an “unusual” release of hundreds of pages’ worth of court documents and video ahead of Meng facing an extradition hearing.

In a “Memorandum of Fact and Law” that was included in the release, lawyers alleged that the abuse is twofold.

They alleged that the U.S. has abused the extradition process after “attempting to use these extradition proceedings for economic and political gain, as evidenced by the statements of the president of the United States.”

The documents alleged that the pre-arrest conduct of both the United States and Trump specifically was “threatening in nature, corrosive of the rule of law, and abusive of the processes of the Extradition Act and the Charter.”

They specifically cited remarks that Trump made to Reuters on Dec. 11, 2018, when he was asked whether he would intervene in the case personally:

“If I think it’s good for what will be certainly the largest trade deal ever made — which is a very important thing — what’s good for national security — I would certainly intervene if I thought it was necessary.”

The second part of the abuse allegations concerns actions by CBSA, the RCMP and American authorities including the FBI.

Meng’s lawyers alleged that these authorities “carried out a plan to unlawfully detain, search and interrogate her on Dec. 1, 2018.”

They claimed that those authorities engaged in a “‘covert criminal investigation’ under the guise of a routine examination” under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA) and the Customs Act.

Meng’s lawyers alleged that the authorities delayed the executive’s arrest by defying a court order, deceiving her about the nature of the detention in order to “avoid the constraints of the Charter,” and “abusing compulsion/search powers granted to CBSA officers for the purpose of collecting evidence for the FBI.”

Meng and her lawyers asked the court to disclose documents related to these allegations.

Ultimately, her legal team said that if abuse of process allegations are established, then that would result in a stay of her extradition proceedings.

— With files from The Canadian Press

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