'Stupid' electrician admits planting racecourse bomb

A part-time electrician yesterday admitted planting a homemade nail bomb at the Sha Tin racecourse, having made it by imitating terrorists he had watched on television.

Lam Kwong-choi, 27, placed the explosive device under a seat at the upper level of the grandstand while 9,800 soccer fans were leaving after watching the live telecast of the World Cup soccer match between Turkey and China on June 13 last year, the Court of First Instance heard.

A Jockey Club cleaner later found the device in a plastic bag, which was wrapped in yellow paper with an attached note bearing the Chinese character for 'bomb', prosecutor Peter Power said.

The bomb was made up of a mobile phone, 287 nails and contained approximately 50 to 100 grams of a low-explosive composition, the court was told.

The device was detonated by a police bomb-disposal robot and no one was injured in the incident, the court heard.

Lam had earlier pleaded guilty in the Magistrate's Court to one count of possession of an explosive substance, namely an improvised explosive device.

Two days after the bomb was found, Lam was placed under surveillance at his Fanling home. A red plastic bag containing a pinhole camera, rolls of adhesive tape and a copper ring was later found at the rear of the building.