Automatic rifles seized 3 years ago will not be returned
Hong Kong police may shortly have to decide what to do with two container-loads of confiscated machine guns after the Court of Appeal rejected an appeal for their return.
More than 2,800 weapons and accessories were impounded by customs in April 2004 after the company that was shipping them from Malaysia to the United States, now known as CP Ships USA, notified the department of the nature of the cargo, which was aboard a ship selected for a spot check.
A spokeswoman for the Customs and Excise Department said that once the firearms were forfeited, they would be turned over to the Hong Kong Police to be disposed of as the commissioner saw fit. CP Ships has argued that it should be allowed to complete the shipment. It has said that it only became aware of what was in the containers after their arrival in Hong Kong.
It had engaged a Malaysian company, Sealord Shipping Services, to organise shipment of the containers to Hong Kong, from where they were to be loaded on to a CP Ships vessel bound for the US.
The containers were, in the words of Mr Justice Anselmo Reyes of the Court of First Instance, 'stuffed with Bren light machine guns, Sten and Sterling sub-machine guns, and machine-gun magazines and fillers to a value of about US$400,000'.
Mr Justice Reyes in May had rejected an application by CP Ships for a judicial review into the circumstances of the seizure.
