Hong Kong protest bomb plot mastermind jailed for nearly 24 years

A man was given a 23-year and 10-month prison sentence by Hong Kong’s high court on Thursday ( Nov. 14 ) for being the mastermind of an alleged plot to bomb police with explosives during the city’s anti-China protests in 2019.

Ng Chi-hung, 28, was accused of using explosives and weapons to harm life in violation of the United Nations Anti-Terrorism Ordinance and a crime to use them.

Another respondent Wong Chun-keung, the head of a class known as the’ Dragon Slayers ‘ which was effective during the 2019 demonstrations, was sentenced to 13 years and six months imprisonment.

Additionally, Justice Judianna Barnes sentenced five people to prison sentences of between five and ten months and twelve years for offenses like allowing the production of bombs.

The long prison sentences are part of China’s ongoing crackdown on national protection in the world’s economic hub, and this is the first time Hong Kong has used the UN anti-terrorism ordinance since 2002.

The judge described the program as “declaration of war on society” and claimed it was premeditated, violent, and targeted police officers.

According to Steve Li, the Hong Kong police’s chief director for national security, the sentence may have” a large deterrent effect,” making it the heaviest for any infraction related to the protests so far in 2019.

He noted that there were seized items, including bullets and explosives, and that some people were arrested and the plan did n’t work out, as planned. The defendants are accused of planning to plant two bombs during a protest march on December 8, 2019.

One of the accused, Lai Chun-pong, who had pleaded not guilty to the charges but was found guilty by a judge in August, was jailed for 10 times and 10 weeks. A second charge, one involving conspiring to cause explosions that were possible to harm people or produce significant property damage, was brought against him.

The other plaintiffs had entered innocent pleas.

45 of Hong Kong’s top democratic figures are scheduled to be sentenced in a split national security situation for an reported provocative story from 2020, less than a week before the decision.