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.
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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’’.