More than 96 per cent of Immigration Department prosecutions concerning fake travel documents went ahead last year without scientific testing to see if they were genuine, it has been revealed.
Government Laboratory figures show the department made 56 requests for tests, but only six sought urgent examination of the documents.
There were 1,516 prosecutions by the department in fake travel-document cases last year, government statistics given to Legco last month showed.
The figures were revealed in a letter to legislator Margaret Ng Ngoi-yee who had requested them during a Legco security panel meeting.
Controversy began in January over the case of Lin Qiaoying, 17, who was jailed for four months after admitting possession of a forged mainland passport. She was released on appeal after two months when the passport was found to be genuine.
A Taiwanese businessman, Chuang Tsung-ling, 27, was also wrongly accused of using a false passport and held for four days in September. As a result he was unable to see his wife before she died of cancer in Taiwan.
