Three suspects, including student, 16, arrested over petrol bomb attack at Hong Kong police sports club

Three young men, including a 16-year-old schoolboy, have been arrested on suspicion of hurling nine petrol bombs into a Hong Kong police sports club earlier this month, setting a parked vehicle alight.

The trio, aged 16 to 23, were identified after dozens of officers spent more than two weeks poring over thousands of hours of security camera footage, with police tracking down the suspects and trailing them around the city, a force insider said on Friday.

The source said he believed the firebomb attack had been an ad hoc action allegedly taken by the three suspects because they were unhappy with police measures preventing people from laying flowers outside Prince Edward MTR station on November 30.

Placing flowers and other mementos at the station has been a common practice for those seeking to commemorate a protest on August 31 last year that saw police chase anti-government demonstrators into the station.

Security stepped up after petrol bomb attack on Hong Kong police sports club

On the night of November 30, three others had been fined at the station for violating the city’s mandatory mask-wearing regulations as they joined the monthly event.

The attack happened shortly thereafter, at around 1am on December 1, when nine petrol bombs were hurled into the outdoor car park of the Police Sports and Recreation Club in Sham Shui Po, causing extensive damage to a parked truck. No one was injured.

“Our investigation shows the three suspects knew each other during the anti-government protests,” the insider said.

One of the suspects was a Form Four student, aged 16, while the others were a 22-year old pharmacy employee and a 23-year-old unemployed man, according to police.

The attack was the first such firebombing at a police facility since the imposition of the national security law at the end of June. The incident had prompted the force to enhance security around police premises across the city to prevent similar attacks.

Security cameras captured three masked men hurling the petrol bombs into the sports club’s car park from a path on a hillside off Sai Yeung Choi Street North. The venue is about 300 metres from Mong Kok Police Station.

Detectives from the Kowloon West regional crime unit were tasked with tracking down the three black-clad perpetrators.

The source said police had to collect video from shops, residential blocks and the dash cameras of vehicles to track down the attackers.

“Security camera footage showed that after the attack, the three culprits ran to Tai Po Road and then fled in different directions,” he said. “They wandered around in Mong Kok for a while before taking taxis separately to Sha Tin, Kwai Chung and Kwun Tong.”

After identifying the suspects, officers arrested them around 9am on Friday in Tsim Sha Tsui, Kwai Chung and Sha Tin.

Police have accused the suspects of arson, an offence that carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.

Officers also seized petrol, empty bottles and pumps on the roof of an old residential block in Mong Kok, where the bombs were believed to have been made.

As of 6pm on Friday, the trio were still being held for questioning, and none of them had been charged.

Chief Inspector Chan Yuk-man, of the Kowloon West regional crime unit, said the three suspects were likely to be formally charged with arson and would appear in West Kowloon Court on Saturday.

She said police would not tolerate any behaviour that disregarded the rule of law and the safety of the public, or that openly challenged the force.

“Police will spare no effort to investigate acts of violence and bring lawbreakers to justice,” she said.

On the day of the attack, Secretary for Security John Lee Ka-chiu had said although the Beijing-decreed national security law had largely calmed the unrest that rocked the city last year, some security risks still existed. Citing the attack on the police club, Lee said the city should stay vigilant to prevent such incidents.

Starting in June last year, Hong Kong was gripped by months of anti-government protests sparked by a now-withdrawn bill that would have allowed the extradition of suspects to jurisdictions including mainland China.

The protests have waned this year amid the Covid-19 pandemic and with the national security law in force, beat policemen have returned to the streets after foot patrols were halted in August last year due to a staff crunch and the risk of officers being attacked by demonstrators.

As of the end of October, police had arrested 10,148 people, aged 11 to 84, in connection with the social unrest.