On December 1, 2018 Canadian authorities, at the request of the US government, arrested Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou at the Vancouver International Airport. The US wanted her extradited to the US to face charges of fraud. Nine days later China arrested two Canadians, Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig. After 557 days of interrogation and imprisonment, with the lights kept on day and night, they were formally charged this month with espionage, a crime punishable by life in prison. During this time China had insisted that there was no connection between Canada’s arrest of Meng and China’s arrest of the two Michaels. But that changed earlier this week.
The Chinese government now says that if Canada sets Meng free, which would be consistent with the rule of law, it could affect the fate of the two Canadians. Should federal Justice Minister David Lametti now exercise his statutory authority to end the extradition case against her and let her go home?
