Detained Hong Kong activist Owen Chow convicted over removing prison complaint form without approval
Hong Kong Free Press
Detained pro-democracy activist Owen Chow has been found guilty of removing an unauthorised article from prison related to the removal of a complaint form about corrections officers.
Wearing a short sleeved beige shirt, Chow appeared before Principal Magistrate Ivy Chui at the West Kowloon Magistrates’ Courts on Monday. Chui found the activist and his lawyer Phyllis Woo guilty of the unauthorised article charge.
The article in question was a letter of complaint that Woo had allegedly been given while visiting Chow at the Lai Chi Kok Reception Centre on May 2 last year.
The complaint, intended for the government watchdog the Ombudsman, related to officers allegedly intercepting two books that were meant to be delivered to Chow.
Chow and Woo pleaded not guilty in March. Last month, Chui rejected a bid by the defence to have Chow acquitted on the grounds that the prosecution had presented insufficient evidence.
Defendants ‘aware’ of rules
Delivering her verdict on Monday, Chui said both Chow and Woo knew the complaint form was an unauthorised item, and planned to transport the document without approval out of the Lai Chi Kok detention centre.
Chui said she accepted the testimonies of corrections officers who said Chow was aware of the regulations over transporting items in and out of prisons.
Chui said she accepted a corrections officer’s testimony that Chow had been given a pamphlet stipulating that approval was needed to take a document out of the Lai Chi Kok detention centre.
An assistant officer earlier testified that Chow should have given the complaint form to officers for a “safety check” before it was sent out.
But Chow’s defence lawyer Jeffrey Tam said the procedures were the department’s own internal guidelines and had no legal basis.
Addressing whether Woo was aware that the document was an unauthorised article, Chui said Woo had gone through the relevant procedures on an occasion prior to the offence.
The lawyer would have known that all exchanges between detainees and visitors should be conducted in the presence of a corrections officer, Chui said.
Woo would have also seen a copy of the Prisons Ordinance outside the detention centre when entering the building, which includes the section on unauthorised articles.
Mitigation for Chow and Woo was adjourned to August 14. Chow, who was convicted in a national security case in May, will remain in detention, while Woo is on bail.
Chow was found guilty in May in a high-profile national security case relating to an unofficial primary election that aimed to select candidates for the Legislative Council election in 2020.
Together with other candidates who ran in the primary’s East New Territories geographic constituency, Chow will have his mitigation plea heard in September. He faces up to life imprisonment.
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