The Department of Justice has reached an agreement with the Chief Financial Officer of Huawei Meng Wanzhou. As a part of the agreement, she will be allowed to return to her home in China, pending a judge’s approval.
For those who are unaware, Meng, who is the daughter of Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei, was arrested in Canada in 2018 on behalf of the United States for allegedly violating American sanctions against Iran.
Since then, she has been fighting attempts to extradite her to the US. A judge in Vancouver was expected to rule on Meng’s possible extradition to the US later this year, following almost two years of hearings.
She is currently under house arrest while on bail. As a part of the agreement with the Department of Justice, she will admit to some improprieties and in return, the prosecutors will postpone and eventually drop bank and wire fraud charges.
Prosecutors claimed that Meng misled banks in 2013 about Huawei’s connections to Iran. She denied the charges, for which she had faced up to 30 years in prison.
The detainment caused an international incident and two Canadians were apprehended in China within days of Meng’s arrest. This new deal with Meng could prompt China to release Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig.
Huawei and its subsidiaries are still facing charges in the US, including conspiracy to steal trade secrets and racketeering conspiracy. The company is not said to be part of Meng’s deal and it will reportedly keep fighting the charges.
The US government and Chinese tech giant Huawei have been at loggerheads for several years. The US has put Huawei on the “Entity List,” effectively banning the company from doing business in the United States or with any of the American companies without special permission from the government.
