Three students have been jailed for up to six years over their involvement in a foiled 2021 plot to bomb court buildings and government offices.
Cheung Ho-yeung, 23, Ho Yu-wang, 20, and Kwok Man-hei, 21 were charged with taking part in a “conspiracy to commit terrorism” under the national security law. Cheung and Ho were both sentenced to six years in prison, while Kwok, who was part of self-proclaimed “revolutionary” group Returning Valiant, was sentenced to two and a half years’ imprisonment.
The trio were accused of conspiring “with a view to coercing” the central and Hong Kong governments, or “intimidating the public in order to pursue political agenda, to organise, plan, commit, participate in or threaten to commit terrorist activities”.
They planned to make improvised explosives and place them in public facilities including government offices, police stations, cross harbour tunnels, and court buildings between April 1 and 5 July 2021, according to the prosecution.
The defendants were arrested before any of the devices were made.
‘Radicals’
Designated national security judge Alex Lee said that the “hostile atmosphere in 2019 and 2020” – when protests over a since-axed extradition bill that escalated into sometimes violent displays of dissent – could “easily cloud one’s moral judgment” and “turn ordinarily harmless people into radicals.”
Ho, whom the prosecution identified as the “mastermind” of the plot, pleaded guilty to the terrorism charge in May. In mitigation, Ho’s lawyer said he should not be sentenced to more than 10 years as the bomb plot did not happen.
Lee sentenced Ho to six years in jail, after a four year deduction was granted from the initial 10 year’s for his timely plea and assistance to the prosecution.
Kwok, who, according to the prosecution, had introduced Cheung to Ho, had earlier pleaded guilty to an alternative charge of conspiring to “cause explosions likely to endanger life or to cause serious injury to property” – an offence under the Crimes Ordinance.
Noting that she suffered from depression, Kwok’s lawyer said: “By nature, she is not an evil person,” and asked for a “more individualised sentence” for her client. But Judge Lee said her mental state did not suggest that she could not tell right from wrong.
Taking into account that her assistance had been of practical use, and her earlier conviction for conspiring to incite subversion under the security law, Lee discounted Kwok’s prison sentence from 66 months to 30.
Cheung, who was charged in April, also pleaded guilty to the explosives charge on Thursday. According to the prosecution, he had provided Ho with HK$40,000 to fund the bomb plot.
He was granted a two-year discount from a starting point of eight years, as the court considered some of his earlier statements as a prosecution witness to be “misleading”.
“No matter what the purpose might have been, the plan was no doubt an evil one,” Lee said, adding that the defendants “came close to declaring war on society” and exposing the government, the courts, and members of the public to terrible risk.
Separately, the court handed down an order not to proceed with the case against Chan Hoi-leong, who was originally the first defendant in the explosives case. Judge Lee told Chan he was “free to go.”
Minors
Four others involved in the plan were sentenced in May, including one man who was jailed for five years and eight months for renting a room where the defendants discussed the bomb plots, and three others aged under 21 were sent to training centres.
The cases related to Returning Valiant are the first national security cases to involve minor defendants. The youngest was aged just 15 at the time of arrest.
The national security legislation was inserted directly into Hong Kong’s mini-constitution in June 2020 by Beijing following a year of pro-democracy protests and unrest. It criminalised subversion, secession, collusion with foreign forces and terrorist acts – broadly defined to include disruption to transport and other infrastructure.
The move gave police sweeping new powers and led to hundreds of arrests amid new legal precedents, while dozens of civil society groups disappeared. The authorities say it restored stability and peace to the city, rejecting criticism from trade partners, the UN and NGOs.
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