Hong Kong magistrate orders prosecutors to hand over unedited footage from national security police head’s visit to unlicensed massage parlour
- Counsel representing four defendants who allegedly worked at the establishment says unedited footage is necessary for their case
- Prosecutors had admitted to heavily redacting CCTV clips from the premises to prevent Senior Assistant Commissioner Frederic Choi being identified
Choi, 51, was found to be among the patrons of the Viet Spa in Wan Chai when police raided the premises on March 19. He was subsequently cleared of illegal conduct by an internal investigation, but still faces a civil service disciplinary hearing.
He was, however, stripped of his post and reassigned as the force’s head of training and discipline.
A man accused of being the owner of the premises – Wu Ping-hung, 61 – was charged with keeping a vice establishment and operating an unlicensed massage parlour. Three women who allegedly worked there – Nguyen Thi Thu Huong, 34, and masseuses Li Yiqing and Zhang Mingfang, aged 36 and 35 – were also hit with charges relating to managing such establishments. All four have pleaded not guilty.
Choi, meanwhile, was not named in court or listed as a prosecution witness, although defence lawyers have said they will seek to call him to testify.
Defence lawyer Oliver Davies, representing Wu, said on Thursday that he had requested the complete disclosure of CCTV clips from the parlour, but prosecutors had only provided heavily redacted footage in which all but the defendants’ faces had been obscured.
“Somebody just does not want to hand it over to us,” Davies said.
The lawyer added that he had only learned about the existence of Choi’s 10-page police statements, taken for the purpose of the disciplinary proceedings, moments before Thursday’s hearing.
He said he needed both the footage and the documents to see whether Choi was a regular customer and what he had said about the facility’s nature before the case proceeded to trial.
Prosecutor Claudia Ko Hoi-yee insisted Choi’s testimony was irrelevant, and that the redaction of the CCTV footage was necessary to prevent him from being identified.
Magistrate Daniel Tang Siu-hung, however, sided with the defence, ordering prosecutors to hand over the unedited footage in four weeks’ time.
He also scheduled a closed-door hearing for November 10 to determine the relevance of Choi’s statements, noting they could potentially have a bearing on the defence’s strategy.
“I read the newspaper and I know the nature of this case,” Tang said. “A very senior officer went to that place … alleged to be a vice establishment. So in that case, how that police officer presented his case [in the statements] will be relevant to the defendants.”
Operators of unlicensed massage parlours face up to six months behind bars and a HK$50,000 (US$6,400) fine, although patronising such premises is legal.
Anyone who operates or manages a vice establishment can face up to three years in prison if the case is heard at the magistrates’ court level.
