Guilty defendant in Hong Kong bomb plot seeks leniency, says he was not mastermind

The only defendant among eight people guilty over a thwarted bomb plot to kill police officers in Hong Kong has asked the court to consider that he was not the mastermind of the plan, ahead of his sentencing no earlier than October alongside six others who admitted to the offences.

Mrs Justice Judianna Wai-ling Barnes on Monday told Lai Chun-pong, a 33-year-old technician, that she would sentence him together with six defendants who earlier pleaded guilty to various offences related to their roles in the plot to detonate explosives and kill officers on Hennessy Road in Wan Chai on December 8, 2019.

One female defendant, Chung Suet-ying, 33, who had pleaded guilty was sentenced last week, receiving seven years and four months’ jail.

Lai was found guilty by a nine-member High Court jury of conspiring to cause explosions or making or keeping explosives with intent to endanger life or property, while six other co-defendants who pleaded not guilty in the trial were acquitted.

The bombing would have taken place at the height of anti-government protests that rocked the city that year.

The court heard evidence against Lai suggesting he had taken charge of finding explosives for making bombs and designing a detonator linked to a smartphone.

Lai’s lawyer, Sabrina See, asked Barnes to consider Lai’s role as merely assisting the real mastermind Ng Chi-hung. Her client did not know exactly how big the bomb would turn out to be when Ng brought explosive to his mobile phone repair shop to run a test, she said.