The curious, the characters, the circus: Outside the Meng Wanzhou extradition hearing
Credit to Author: Denise Ryan| Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2020 00:21:19 +0000
As courtroom circuses go, the start of Monday’s extradition hearing for Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou was relatively tame.
But there were a lot of journalists from across Canada and the world lining up to get into the courtroom, including from the New York Times, CNN, the Wall Street Journal and China’s state-run media organizations.
Meng, who wore a GPS ankle bracelet and who was flanked by her security guards, gave a smile and wave to the handful of supporters gathered outside the Smithe Street entrance to the B.C. Supreme Court as she stepped out of her car.
The 47-year-old, who has been under house arrest in a Shaughnessy mansion since her 2018 arrest, clipped past a bank of reporters and camera people. She was wearing black satin Manolo Blahnik stilettos with a jewelled buckle, a polka-dot midi dress, a modest hair clip, no makeup and a demure smile.
Arguments were in Courtroom 20, a hearing room that was built at a cost of $7.2 million for the Air India trial in 2003. The courtroom is equipped with bullet-resistant Lexan windows, high-tech security, television monitors and blood red carpeting. Media, accredited and non-accredited, a sketch artist wielding a large ream of paper and a box of pastels and interested members of the public observed the proceedings from a 149-seat gallery outside the secure Plexiglas.
Three video screens were set up in a lobby area outside the courtroom where reporters, law clerks and student journalists who couldn’t get into the standing-room-only court watched lawyers present their arguments about whether Meng’s conduct as Huawei CFO was an extraditable offence under Canadian law. As the hearing stretched on throughout with lawyers making arguments in calm monotones, the crowds thinned.
No other cameras were allowed in the courtroom after a group of media outlets, including CP were denied permission to film the proceedings on the basis that it might compromise her ability to receive a fair trial in the U.S. should she be extradited.
During a session break in the afternoon, a relaxed Meng stood casually outside the courtroom doors chatting with people and smiling.
Outside the court building, a small group of young people were gathered held signs asking to “free Meng” and “bring Michael home” but refused to give their names or say with whom they were affiliated or clarify which Michael they were there to support. The so-called “two Michaels”, former diplomat Michael Kovrig and businessman Michael Spavor, have been held in China since the diplomatic tiff erupted after the RCMP arrested Meng at Vancouver International Airport in December, 2018.
On the Nelson street steps of the courthouse, a small group, some wearing blue face masks to conceal their identity held up signs asking for China to release some three million Uiyghur Muslims from mass detention camps in Xinjiang, which China calls “re-education camps.”
A single protester, Isabelle Cheung, said she supported the arrest and extradition of Meng because Beijing officials had stolen her life savings and she was unable to get justice. “There is one rule for the rich and powerful in China and one rule for other people.”
dryan@postmedia.com