US prosecutors to use secret surveillance evidence in Huawei lawsuit

April 5, 2019 by Ian Allen

Prosecutors in the United States have informed lawyers representing the Chinese telecom- munications firm Huawei that they intend to use evidence obtained through secret surveillance in a lawsuit against the company. The case involves the arrest of Meng Wanzhou by Canadian authorities in December of last year. Meng, 47, is Huawei’s deputy chair and chief financial officer, and is the daughter of Ren Zhengfei, a former officer in the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, who founded the telecommunications giant in 1988. She was detained on December 1 in Vancouver at the request of the US, which claims it has evidence that she “tried to evade the American embargo against Iran”. On March 1, the Canadian Department of Justice formally commenced Meng’s extradition process to the US, which Huawei’s lawyers are currently seeking to prevent.

In a lawsuit brought by US government prosecu- tors against Huawei, the Chinese telecom- munications firm is accused of having conspired to defraud several multinational banks by misrepresenting its relationship with a company called Skykom Tech. Washington says that the company is in fact a front used to conceal illicit activities conducted by the Islamic Republic of Iran. American government prosecutors claim that Huawei worked with Skykom Tech to evade US-imposed economic sanctions on Iran. At a Thursday morning hearing in a federal court in Brooklyn, New York, Assistant US Attorney Alex Solomon said that US authorities had used “secret surveillance” to collect evidence against Huawei. He also said that the evidence had been obtained under a US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant, which is issued by a secret court and usually pertains to counterintelligence investigations —i.e. when a target is suspected of spying against the US.

Solomon said that the evidence against Huawei was “obtained […] from electronic surveillance and physical search”. He did not elaborate, but added that US government’s legal team had notified Huawei that it planned to use the FISA evidence in court. Last month Huawei rejected all charges filed against it. The company has not yet commented on the FISA evidence. The next date in the court case has been scheduled for June 19, 2019.

► Author: Ian Allen | Date: 05 April 2019 | Permalink