Serving Hong Kong police officers hit out at missing booksellers investigation
One officer says the probe is being carried out at too low a level, but security secretary defends police actions
Top security officials and police chiefs have been accused of “soft-pedalling” on the investigation into the disappearance of five Hong Kong booksellers by putting a relatively unskilled and inexperienced team of officers in charge of the case.
Despite renewed assurances on Wednesday from Secretary for Security Lai Tung-kwok that the police were committed to a “full and thorough” investigation, experienced officers voiced “serious concerns” about the handling of the probe.
READ MORE: Missing Hong Kong bookseller says he turned himself in for 2003 drunk driving death on state TV
One of the officers – none of whom are directly involved in the investigation and all of whom requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the case – said he was “utterly disgusted and appalled with what was going on”.
More than three months after the first of the booksellers, 51-year-old Gui Minhai, vanished without trace from the Thai resort of Pattaya and just over three weeks since his associate, Lee Bo, 65, became the last of the group to disappear from Hong Kong in strange circumstances, officers from a missing persons unit remain in charge of the probe.
Gui is a citizen of Sweden, whose Foreign Ministry yesterday issued a fresh call to Beijing for answers over his whereabouts, while the other four – including Lee Bo, a British citizen – are Hong Kong residents.
All the Hong Kong men remain officially listed as “missing persons” by the police despite confirmation by Guangdong security officials that Lee Bo is on the mainland. None of their photographs appear in a gallery of missing people on the police website.
In a written reply to a question to Democratic Party lawmaker Emily Lau Wai-hing on Wednesday, security chief Lai confirmed that the five cases had been “consolidated” and were being handled by one of the force’s five regional missing persons units “with the support of a regional crime unit’’.
One officer , a veteran of more than 20 years, told the South China Morning Post: “Why on earth has a regional missing persons unit been left to deal with a case which potentially involves five abductees?
READ MORE: Timeline: Hong Kong’s missing booksellers and what has happened so far
“If this was any other case the Organised Crime and Triad Bureau [OCTB] or at the very least a regional crime unit would be handling this.”
Another long-serving officer said: “ Look on the official website of the force. It clearly states that the OCTB ‘liases regularly with mainland and overseas law enforcement agencies for exchange of intelligence and neutralising illegal activities’. Surely, they would be ideally placed to get to the bottom of this, no?
“Police officers have a duty not only to detect crime but to protect the Hong Kong public, and it is very sad to see that the present administration appears to be completely unable or unwilling to protect it’s own people.
“It is equally galling that the management of the police force has not even put together a squad of highly experienced officers or a task force to properly investigate the matter. Is this being soft- pedalled out of political considerations?’’
Meanwhile, Lau yesterday wrote to Wang Guangya (王光亞), director of the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, asking him to ensure that Hong Kong people will continue to enjoy the rights and freedoms in the Basic Law.
Dissident poet Bei Ling, who has known publisher Gui since 1984, said Gui’s daughter Angela wanted to visit her father in the mainland after his appearance on state-run CCTV but was warned off by the Swedish authorities. who said it would be “dangerous”.
