Head of local prosecutors’ group urges Hong Kong justice minister Teresa Cheng to advise police about ‘reliability and honesty’, leaked email shows

William Wong, chair of Court Prosecutors Association, claims police lied about timing of pro-democracy activists’ arrests

Wong warns in email that city’s legal system at risk – but former top prosecutor calls it a ‘very strange letter indeed’

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Joshua Wong and Agnes Chow at the High Court on Tuesday. The activists were arrested on August 30, a day ahead of a mass protest rally. Photo: David Wong

Published: 11:04pm, 2 Sep 2019Updated: 3:46am, 3 Sep 2019

The head of a local prosecutors’ group has called on Hong Kong’s justice minister and chief prosecutor to advise the police force about “reliability and honesty” before its actions damage the entire legal system, according to an email leaked on Monday.

William Wong, the chairman of the Court Prosecutors (Department of Justice) Association, told the Post he wrote to Secretary for Justice Teresa Cheng Yeuk-wah and Director of Public Prosecutions David Leung Cheuk-yin after last week’s arrests of high-profile pro-democracy politicians and activists.

Secretary for Justice Teresa Cheng at the Court of Final Appeal in June. Photo: Jonathan Wong

“I can’t deny it because prosecutors can’t lie,” Wong said on Monday. But he made no further comments.

In his email, Wong questioned the timing of the arrests – at times in emphatic terms – which came a day before a planned mass rally of the anti-government protest movement last Sunday.

“Police know very well that August 31 is a sensitive day and on August 30 they arrested … seven public figures,” he wrote.

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