"Under the deal, federal prosecutors will defer and then ultimately drop the charges against her. ... Prosecutors said that under the deferred prosecution agreement, the Justice Department will withdraw its extradition request to the Canadian authorities, clearing the way for her release provided that she adheres to the agreement’s terms. They said that the charges would be dropped on Dec. 1, 2022"
Two Mikes will be home. If not, even the US want her be released, Canada should continually retain her until two Mikes home!
Ms. Meng will return to China in exchange for admitting some wrongdoing in a sanctions violation case as part of an agreement with U.S. prosecutors.
www.nytimes.com
Meng Wanzhou agreed to deal in a Brooklyn court hearing.
Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Huawei, leaving home in August to attend an extradition hearing in Vancouver.Credit...Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press, via Associated Press
By
Katie Benner,
Dan Bilefsky and
Emily Palmer
- Sept. 24, 2021Updated 3:12 p.m. ET
The Justice Department reached an agreement on Friday clearing the way for Huawei Technologies’ chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, to return to China in exchange for admitting some wrongdoing in a sanctions violation case.
Ms. Meng, who has been detained in Canada since 2018, agreed to a deferred prosecution agreement, which was entered into the record during a hearing in federal court in Brooklyn on Friday. Under the deal, federal prosecutors will defer and then ultimately drop the charges against her.
“Ms. Meng, you have been charged by a grand jury with conspiracy to commit bank fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and with wire fraud,” Judge Ann M. Donnelly said at the hearing. Ms. Meng, who appeared by videoconference for Friday’s hearing, smiled and nodded in response.
Prosecutors said that under the deferred prosecution agreement, the Justice Department will withdraw its extradition request to the Canadian authorities, clearing the way for her release provided that she adheres to the agreement’s terms. They said that the charges would be dropped on Dec. 1, 2022.
In an interview, Michelle Lebin, a member of Ms. Meng’s defense team, said she was very pleased that “Ms. Meng is free to go home and be with her family.”
The case has become a symbol of the tumultuous relationship between two global superpowers, the United States and China, which is at its lowest level in decades. It has also created a diplomatic challenge that has put Canada in the middle.
The deal Ms. Meng could signal a more conciliatory approach in Washington’s stance toward Beijing under the Biden administration.
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Judge Donnelly, who is also presiding over the case of R. Kelly, the multiplatinum R&B artist accused of racketeering and sex trafficking, was almost an hour late for the Meng hearing as she was instructing the jury in that case in the same courthouse, two floors below.
The
Canadian authorities arrested Ms. Meng, 49, the technology giant’s chief financial officer, in December 2018 at Vancouver International Airport, at the request of the United States. Ms. Meng, the daughter of Huawei’s founder and chief executive, Ren Zhengfei, instantly became one of the world’s most famous detainees.
In January 2019, The Justice Department indicted Ms. Meng and Huawei, the telecom company founded by her father, Ren Zhengfei. It accused the firm and its chief financial officer of a decade-long effort to steal trade secrets, obstruct a criminal investigation and evade economic sanctions on Iran.
The charges underscored efforts by the Trump administration to directly link Huawei with the Chinese government, after long suspecting that the company worked to advance Beijing’s economic and political ambitions and undermine American interests.
The release of Ms. Meng could play into the fate of t
wo Canadians imprisoned in China
China detained
the former diplomat Michael Kovrig and the businessman Michael Spavor, soon after Ms. Meng’s arrest, in what has been widely viewed in Canada as hostage diplomacy. China has denied they were connected. In August,
a court in northeastern China, where Mr. Spavor has lived, sentenced him to 11 years in prison after declaring him guilty of spying.
If the two men are released, it could provide a lift to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada, who was re-elected this week with a minority government after calling an unpopular snap election. Mr. Trudeau’s inability to secure their freedom has cast a shadow over his premiership.
Throughout her extradition hearing in Canada, Ms. Meng’s defense team professed her innocence. They argued that President Donald J. Trump had politicized her case and that her rights had been breached when she was arrested in Vancouver.
Correction: Sept. 24, 2021
An earlier version of this article misstated when the Justice Department indicted Huawei and Meng Wanzhou. It occurred in 2019, not 2018.
Katie Benner covers the Justice Department. She was part of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2018 for public service for reporting on workplace sexual harassment issues.
@ktbenner
Dan Bilefsky is a Canada correspondent for The New York Times, based in Montreal. He was previously based in London, Paris, Prague and New York. He is author of the book "The Last Job," about a gang of aging English thieves called "The Bad Grandpas."
@DanBilefsky