Glue or poo? Smelly substance on Hong Kong lawmaker Kenneth Leung’s jeans tested in laboratory
Pan-democrat was attending a meeting in Legco conference room when substance rubbed off from underside of desk
What at first appeared to be human faeces rubbed on the underside of a lawmaker’s desk in a suspected targeted attack last Saturday in the Legislative Council was more likely to have been glue, the legislature’s president confirmed yesterday.
Jasper Tsang Yok-sing was speaking after receiving reports from two laboratories and the government’s forensic science division. But pan-democrat Kenneth Leung, the apparent victim, was not convinced by the finding .
“I can’t say for sure who is right. I still believe it was a faecal smell … but if you rub your jeans repeatedly with alcohol, I would be surprised if there is still any bacterium in the sample,” said the representative for the accountancy sector.
Leung, of the Professional Commons, was attending a meeting in a Legco conference room on Saturday morning when he discovered that something that looked like faeces had been rubbed on the underside of his desk, and some of it rubbed off on his jeans. He also smelled something foul.
The incident took place days after an explosion outside the premises prompted a decision to step up security.
However, Tsang said: “The private laboratories failed to find the bacteria that are usually present in faecal matter, so perhaps the results are not conclusive. But what we can say is … that there is no evidence whatsoever which can indicate that the stain was caused by faecal matter.
“The government laboratory’s forensic science division found traces of a material called urea formaldehyde, which is usually used in … adhesive substances used in woodwork.”
When asked whether the bacteria could have been rubbed away by Leung, Tsang said: “The division examined it with a microscope and did a chemical analysis, and said it was unlikely to be faeces … they also did not notice a faecal smell, which cannot be eliminated with alcohol.”
Tsang said the findings seemed to rule out “the likelihood that it was caused by a mischievous act”. He added that after the incident, Legco staff had stepped up cleaning of furniture in the building, and a similar yellowish material was found when they rubbed the underside of other desks in the room.
The president also dismissed any suggestion of a problem with the quality of Legco’s furniture, saying: “We’ve used this building for four years, and this is the first time that a lawmaker has complained that his clothes were stained … But we have stepped up on cleaning, and I think this will not happen again.”
The incident had raised questions about whether someone could have entered a conference room that was usually locked.
When asked if someone could have sneaked in to rub the adhesive substance on the underside of the desks, Tsang said: “I like reading detective novels, and they often talk about the motive, the opportunity and the means of committing a crime.
“There was no [evidence] to suggest that any specific lawmaker was targeted because seating in the conference room was not prearranged … so it was not very meaningful to make the imagination such as yours.”
He reiterated that conference rooms were usually locked when unused, and nothing suspicious was found in replays of closed-circuit TV footage from the rooms.
