Revealed: the HK$30million anti-riot cars Hong Kong police have never even used

A HK$30 million fleet of purpose-built anti-riot armoured vehicles owned by the Hong Kong police force have never been deployed on the SAR’s streets in a real operation – six years after they were bought, it has emerged.

Almost two weeks after Mong Kok was rocked by ten hours of riots – the policing of which has prompted an internal force review and sparked rancour among the rank-and-file – the Sunday Morning Post has discovered that six state-of-the-art armoured personnel carriers have only been used for training and ceremonial purposes.

According to one officer, the vehicles “could have stopped the riot in five minutes.”

The six Mercedes-Benz Unimog U5000 armoured vehicles were manufactured by German car giant Mercedes and modified in France by a company specialising in heavy-duty, blast -proof armour plating .

They were bought in 2010 to replace the old British military-style Saxon APCs which had become outdated after more than 20 years in service.

News of the semi-mothballed vehicles comes as the force is about to spend another HK$27 million on water cannon in the wake of the 2014 Occupy protests and the Mong Kok riot.

Photographs of the exteriors and interiors of the Unimogs taken in 2014 – four years after they were delivered – which we publish today show the vehicles in almost pristine condition.