Niece of top Hong Kong judge arrested again, this time for driving while disqualified and not having any insurance
- Amina Bokhary stopped while driving in erratic manner down King Kwong Street in Happy Valley
A woman with a familiar family name whose past brushes with the law made her an instantly recognisable figure in Hong Kong is in trouble again, the Post has learned.
Amina Mariam Bokhary, the niece of Court of Final Appeal judge Kemal Bokhary, was arrested on Thursday night for driving with a suspended licence, according to a source.
She was pulled over at King Kwong Street in Happy Valley after a police patrol team spotted her car cruising in a wobbly manner.
She was arrested for driving while disqualified and without third-party insurance and has been released since, but will have to report to police later this month.
The 42-year-old, whose previous assaults on police officers, compounded by public perceptions of entitlement on her part, was once a hate figure and even sparked a public protest.
In 2010, she slapped a police officer on the face while refusing to take a breathalyser following a traffic accident at Stubbs Road, also in Happy Valley.
It was later revealed that she had twice previously assaulted a police officer. She was spared jail by the magistrates who gave her non-custodial sentences for the three assaults, sparking a public outcry and accusations that the courts showed leniency to well-connected defendants.
She was eventually sent to jail for six weeks in 2011 after she breached five of the seven probation conditions imposed on her by a magistrate in the assault case. She was also banned from the road for three years.
Amina’s friends and family in high places
The source said Amina Bokhary’s licence had been suspended for three years, but since she had not taken the course required to reactivate it, the document remained suspended when she was pulled over on Thursday.
One of the probation conditions in 2010 was that she would spend three months at the Betty Ford Centre for alcohol rehabilitation in California, but she left after 78 days. The breaches prompted the Eastern Court to change her sentence to six weeks in jail. She was freed after serving two-thirds of the sentence.
In December 2008, Amina Bokhary was ordered to perform 240 hours of community service and fined HK$1,000 for assaulting a policewoman and a taxi driver. In 2002, she was fined HK$9,000 for assaulting a policeman and damaging a spotlight outside a Central bar.
Additional reporting by Christy Leung
