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Hong Kong police have arrested five people for rioting and sedition offences linked to the 2019 anti-government protests, with the Post learning that one of the group was a recently acquitted defendant in a high-profile bomb plot case. Superintendent Simon Cheung Pak-kit of the force’s National Security Department said on Wednesday that officers arrested two men and three women in Kowloon Bay and the New Territories the day before. Officers also seized HK$250,000 (US$32,200) suspected to be linked to the case, he said. “We emphasise that this case is independent from other old cases, and that it is established from new evidence,” Cheung said. A source told the Post that one of the suspects was 32-year-old Ng Tsz-lok, who was acquitted last month of conspiracy to bomb prescribed objects. The 163-day trial focused on plots to trigger explosions at three public locations in an attempt to coerce the government into closing all city borders during the Covid-19 pandemic. A jury found three out of the eight defendants guilty of conspiracy to cause an explosion of a nature likely to endanger life or cause serious injury to property, with the court handing down jail sentences of up to 18 years. The five suspects, aged 32 to 60, in the latest case remained in police custody as of Wednesday afternoon. They were arrested for aiding and abetting a riot, inciting a riot and conspiring to incite a riot under the Public Order Ordinance, as well as perversion of the course of public justice and a sedition offence under the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance. Superintendent Cheung said the suspects were believed to have produced and bought weapons used during violent clashes between protesters and police officers in 2019. The Post learned that the weapons involved were not related to the high-profile bomb plot court case that concluded on Monday. Cheung accused one of the male suspects, aged 34, of making multiple seditious posts on social media to incite hatred against the city government and inciting others to do unspecified illegal acts back in 2019. The superintendent also singled out a 50-year-old female suspect for allegedly perverting the course of public justice by attempting to remove evidence related to another male suspect.
