Hongkonger who made failed Taiwan escape bid jailed for 5 years, 1 month over perverting justice, protest charges
Hong Kong Free Press
A Hongkonger who made a failed escape attempt to Taiwan has been jailed for five years and one month over perverting the course of justice and two explosive charges linked to the protests in 2019.
Quinn Moon, 37, appeared at District Court on Tuesday morning. She pleaded guilty to all three charges earlier this month.
Handing down the sentence, judge Stanley Chan said he believed the defendant regretted her actions. But Moon had allowed her boyfriend to keep a pipe bomb in her home and experimented with making an explosive device with the intention of using it in a riot, Chan said.
Regarding the perverting the course justice charge, which related to her attempt to flee Hong Kong for Taiwan in 2020, Chan said Moon had played a role in planning the escape for herself and 11 others.
Moon was sentenced to 43 months for the explosives charges and 18 months for perverting justice. Chan ordered the sentences to be served separately as the two cases were “very different” in terms of the nature of the offences and when they were carried out.
Supporters in the public gallery chanted “take care” as Moon was led out of the courtroom by corrections officers.
Moon was among a group of 12 Hongkongers caught by the mainland Chinese coastguard in August 2020 as they tried to flee the city on a speedboat bound for Taiwan. Most on board were facing charges linked to the protests in 2019, including rioting and arson.
She has already spent more than three years in detention. After serving a two-year jail term in mainland China for organising an illegal border crossing, Moon was arrested upon her return to Hong Kong in August 2022. She was denied bail and has been detained since.
The ‘larger environment’ in 2019
At the time of Moon’s escape attempt, she was wanted in relation to an explosives case. The court heard earlier this month, when Moon submitted her guilty pleas, that police had searched her Mong Kok home on January 14, 2020, and found a homemade pipe bomb that she said was brought back by her boyfriend.
Separately, Moon had also experimented with other attempts to make explosives, which she and her boyfriend had tested out on a hill at night.
Handing down the sentence on Tuesday, Chan said Moon’s boyfriend was arrested the day that police searched her home. Upon learning about the arrest, she decided to leave Hong Kong and spent about half a year in hiding leading up to the escape attempt.
Moon’s boyfriend, Wong Kai-hin, was jailed for four and a half years over possessing explosives in August 2021.
Chan said that he could not look at the pipe bomb and the other explosive in isolation without factoring in the defendant’s motive and the “larger environment,” referring to the protests and unrest in 2019.
“[I] believe there was a chance that the defendant would naturally take part in violent activities,” he said in Cantonese.
The judge also said that had the escape plan succeeded, it was believed that the fugitives “would not just live quietly in other territories or Western countries, but would attack and berate Hong Kong’s regime, system and values.”
The plan also “clearly” had the backing of external forces, Chan said. Somebody had funded the boat used for the failed escape, and there was a clear division of labour including the purchase of supplies, the safehouse for hiding in before the escape and “secret codes for communication.”
Mitigation
Before delivering the sentence, Chan told Moon to stand and asked how long she had spent writing her two-page mitigation letter. Moon said she used at least two months, during which she “tried her best” to reflect on her feelings in detention.
She said she had written a draft for a lawyer and made revisions, taking each and every word seriously and writing a final version to be submitted to the judge. The defendant appeared teary eyed when she replied.
Chan said she asked Moon the question because her mitigation letter was “different” from others he had read. He had quoted significant parts of her letter in his reasons for sentencing, he added.
He also asked Moon whether she had plans to change her name back to her family name, Fong. The court heard earlier that the defendant had a distant relationship with her family, and had changed her official name and cut ties with them.
If she does not change her name back, Chan said, that would “contradict” what she had written in her letter.
Moon said that she had already promised her family that she would do so. When she sat down, she wiped her eyes with a tissue.
In the sentencing document uploaded online, part of which Chan read out on Tuesday, the judge quoted extensively from Moon’s mitigation letter which he said showed she had “indeed reflected on her actions.”
In her mitigation letter, written in Chinese, Moon said that even though she had lost her freedom over the past years, she had come to “understand how much I loved my home – a peaceful Hong Kong.” While she was serving time in a Guangdong province prison, law enforcement officers from mainland China and Hong Kong kept “close contact” with her. Under their “kind guidance,” she was able to reflect and see that her behaviour had gravely impacted Hong Kong, she said.
Moon also wrote that on the first Lunar New Year Eve after she was caught by mainland Chinese authorities, two female representatives from Beijing’s Liaison Office and State Council paid the prison a visit.
“This led me to understand that the country still cares about Hong Kong’s young people. I also hope that China cam become a motherland I am proud of,” she wrote. “Now, I appreciate and practice traditional Chinese philosophy. When people face difficulties, the first thing to do is to find the crux of the problem within ourselves and make improvements. Only then can the problem have a greater chance of being addressed.”
Moon added that violence was not the answer and that she did not hope to see political violence in society again.
Of the 12 Hongkongers who attempted the Taiwan escape, Moon was handed the second-longest sentence in mainland China.
Only Tang Kai-yin was jailed for longer, and was returned to the city’s authorities last August after three years in a mainland China jail.
Earlier this month, Tang pleaded guilty to possessing materials that could be used to make petrol bombs. He is expected to submit a guilty plea for perverting the course of justice linked to the escape attempt next month.
Among the 10 other fugitives, Wong Lam-fuk – a minor – was sentenced to a training centre after pleading guilty to perverting justice and protest-related charges. Wong Wai-yin pleaded guilty to manufacturing explosives linked to the 2019 protests and his perverting justice charge was kept on court file, meaning the prosecution cannot proceed with the charge without the judge’s permission.
Meanwhile, activist Andy Li was not charged with perverting the course of justice. He is in custody awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty in a national security case, in which Apple Daily founder Jimmy Lai has also been also charged.
The remaining seven were jailed for 10 months.
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