Meng's bail terms include an 11 p.m.
to 6 a.m.
curfew and 24-hour surveillance.Meng Wanzhou steps out of her $4.2 million mansion, a GPS monitor strapped to her ankle, and slips into a chauffeured black SUV.
Then she's off, largely free to roam shops and restaurants within 100 square miles of Vancouver until her 11 p.m.
curfew.So goes another day of house arrest for Meng, chief financial officer of Huawei Technologies Co.
and daughter of billionaire founder of China's biggest telecom provider.
It is, by all appearances, a comfortable life for someone at center of a complex power game.Meng's arrest at behest of United States -- which wants to extradite her on grounds she tricked banks into potentially violating Iran sanctions -- has sparked an unprecedented diplomatic row.
Nine days after her Dec.
1 arrest during a stop over in Vancouver, China detained two Canadians on national security grounds.
And this week, a China court imposed a death sentence, following a one-day trial, on a Canadian found guilty of drug smuggling.How Meng's case will be resolved remains unclear, though she's become an object of fascination in a city where her family owns two homes and where she spent down time when she wasn't running Huawei's finances.
Tourists stop by to take selfies outside her home near a 2,000-acre park overlooking Pacific Ocean, where she is ensconced with her husband and daughter.Home RenoMeng's bail terms include GPS monitor, an 11 p.m.
to 6 a.m.
curfew, and 24-hour surveillance by a private security firm, Lions Gate Risk Management Group.
Their job is to ensure she doesn't violate conditions of her release.
She pays hefty bill for that monitoring, which includes two guards at a time and a driver."If I were on The Price is Right, I'd say that's about $7,000 a day," or more than $2.5 million a year, said Nicholas Casale, a former police detective, referencing game show.
Casale structured Bernie Madoff's bail agreement and acted as monitor for disgraced money manager for about three months.Meng's long leash following her C$10 million ($7.5 million) bail is unusual, he said -- normally, defendant's movements and communications would be restricted."You can't just go to dinner or go shopping," Casale said.Nissan ArrestThe conditions of Meng's house arrest are in stark contrast to another corporate titan -- former Nissan Motor Co.
chairman Carlos Ghosn -- who is confined at a Tokyo detention center.
He arrived in handcuffs, plastic slippers and a rope around his waist in court last week.
Meng is also faring better than two Canadians detained in China, who have had scant consular access.That hasn't stopped China's envoy to Canada from protesting Meng's treatment.
In a fiery op-ed published in an Ottawa newspaper last week, Ambassador Lu Shaye railed against "Western egotism" and "white supremacy" of those who have criticized China for detaining Canadians, in what was widely seen as retaliation."Have they shown any concern or sympathy for Meng after she was illegally detained and deprived of freedom," Lu wrote in Hill Times.Meng, 46, sported a purple Hermes scarf and Bottega Veneta handbag when she first reported to her bail supervisor in Vancouver on Dec.
12.
Renovations, meanwhile, are underway at her other C$16.3 million mansion in one of Vancouver's toniest neighborhoods, where a truck from a high-end closet designer was parked outside recently.
Her defense indicated she'd like to move there when it's ready.
If she does, she'll be two doors down from United States consul general's residence, where star-spangled banner flaps on front lawn.Slow ProcessGetting glimpses of her daily life is difficult -- her guards appear to have taken on responsibility of shielding her from public eye.
When Bloomberg News journalists parked on street next to her home last week and identified themselves as press, one guard took photos of license plate as another sped over in his white SUV to block their vehicle.
As Meng slipped out of her house in her Lululemon jacket, guard began accusing journalists of damaging his car before later acknowledging he'd obstructed them.Still, outings and post-card views mask a darker reality for Meng: This extradition process could drag on for months and possibly years, if history is any guide.
And odds are high that she will be extradited in end."The tilt of Crown in these cases is extradite, extradite, extradite," said Robert Currie, a professor at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia who specializes in international law.
Canada's extradition law "is unbalanced to point where a number of critics, including me, have said it's unfair."Canada CrimeThe United States must turn over its formal extradition request by end of January.
Canada's Justice Minister David Lametti can reject request or order extradition hearings to begin.
It's not clear if that will happen before Meng's next court date.Lametti can't arbitrarily refuse.
His ministry would have to determine that fraud doesn't constitute a crime in Canada -- an implausible finding.
Furthermore, in Canada, extradition judge has to accept whatever evidence United States presents at face value -- proceedings don't consider strength of evidence or likelihood of conviction.Canadian judges end up approving about 90 percent of extradition requests because system makes it nearly impossible to mount a defense, says Gary Botting, a Vancouver-based lawyer who's been involved in hundreds of extradition cases.Jump High"They say 'Jump,' and Canada says 'How high,'" he said.For her part, Meng has hinted at how she'd like to spend her time during what could be a years-long ordeal.She'd like to apply for a PhD in business administration at University of British Columbia, whose campus sits near her home.
In an awkward twist, school is receiving C$3 million from Huawei to fund research on 5G -- next-generation mobile network technology that United States wants to block company from developing."I've been working hard for 25 years," she said through her lawyer during her bail hearings last month.
"If released, my only simple goal would be to spend time with my husband and daughter.
I haven't read a novel in years."(Except for headline, this story has not been edited by TheIndianSubcontinent staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)