The high-profile case involved 14 people, with 10 of them being charged under the United Nations Anti-Terrorism Measures Ordinance for the first time since its enactment in 2002. - Photo: Xiaomei Chen
HONG KONG: The mastermind of a bomb plot targeting Hong Kong police has been jailed for 23 years and 10 months, while the leader of the “Dragon Slaying Brigade”, the team behind the thwarted 2019 plan, has been handed a sentence of 13½ years in prison.
Madam Justice Judianna Wai-ling Barnes on Thursday (Nov 14) at the High Court sentenced seven defendants in connection with the plot to plant two bombs in Wan Chai on December 8, 2019, at the height of the months-long anti-government protests.
The high-profile case involved 14 people, with 10 of them being charged under the United Nations Anti-Terrorism Measures Ordinance for the first time since its enactment in 2002.
Seven of them denied the charges and stood trial from April to August this year, with six acquitted by the jury.
During the trial, the court heard Ng Chi-hung, 28, hatched a plot to use explosives and real guns against police and invited the “Dragon Slaying Brigade”, which was led by Wong Chun-keung, 26, to join the conspiracy.
Under their plan, the brigade would draw police out onto the street, while Ng would detonate a small bomb packed with 2kg of explosives near a petrol station by the Emperor Group Centre.
Predicting that police would then retreat to their headquarters on Arsenal Street, a sniper would ambush officers as Ng set off a larger bomb containing 8kg of explosives and 150 nails that had been planted in the area.
The pair admitted to one count of conspiring to commit the bombing of prescribed objects.
Ng's teammate Eddie Pang Kwan-ho, 38, also pleaded guilty to the same charge and was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
The maximum sentence for this offence is life imprisonment.
Lai Chun-pong, 33, convicted of a count of conspiring to cause explosions that were likely to endanger life or cause significant property damage – a lesser offence as an alternative charge – after trial.
Lai was the only defendant among seven people found guilty by the jury in August.
The court heard that Lai was behind an improvised detonator linked to a smartphone.
In late November 2019, Ng brought explosives over to Lai’s mobile phone repair shop in an industrial building and ran a successful test with the device.
Although the bombs were successfully made, the plot did not happen in the end, with Wong and Ng arrested by police hours before they could carry out the plot.
A ballistics report cited in court said the second bomb could have caused “severe casualties and property loss within a 400-metre radius”. - South China Morning Post
