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HK democrat, media chief ‘targets’ of alleged shooter

This combination photo shows pro-democracy campaigner Martin Lee, left, speaking to journalists in Hong Kong on May 30, and media mogul Jimmy Lai speaking at the SOPA publishers award ceremony in the territory on June 11. PHOTO: AFP

Hong Kong pro-democracy campaigner Martin Lee (李柱銘) and media mogul Jimmy Lai (黎智英) were the probable targets of a shooting plot that was foiled by police, a court heard yesterday.

The operation was only prevented when the potential attacker, Huang Nanhua (黃南華), was stopped by chance at a police checkpoint, prosecution lawyer Peter Chapman told Hong Kong’s Court of First Instance.

An alert female police officer discovered a homemade pistol and five rounds of ammunition in Huang’s bag after he acted suspiciously when the taxi he was traveling in was stopped, Chapman said.

In addition, papers in his bag were found with a photo and home address of Lai, a longtime critic of Beijing and owner of the Apple Daily newspaper, as well as details of restaurants where Lai and Lee regularly dined.

Huang later told police he “had been instructed to come to Hong Kong to teach someone a lesson.”

Lee was a founding member of the city’s Democratic Party.

The veteran campaigner has also been at the forefront of the campaign to remember and vindicate those who led a six-week protest in Tiananmen Square in Beijing in 1989 that was ended by a bloody military crackdown.

Lai is chairman of Next Media, which runs newspapers and magazines in Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Chapman said the prosecution had not been able to pinpoint who was the precise target of the plots or how seriously the accused intended to injure them.

But he said Lee and Lai, who were expected to appear as prosecution witnesses in the 10-day trial, were the “most credible” targets.

Chapman said that the pistol was smuggled from the mainland last August by a man called Ho Wai-kam, before being passed to Huang.

Huang then went to a Democratic Party office in the city “to see if Lee was there,” Chapman said.

“This was a recce [reconnaissance],” Chapman told the court.

But soon after, Huang — who is also known as Wong Siu-ming — was stopped by police “by chance,” Chapman said.

“This appears to have been a planned operation that plainly did not go to plan,” the lawyer said.

Huang denies one count of carrying arms and ammunition with intent to cause an arrestable offense, and one count of possession of arms and ammunition without a license. The plot was discovered just before elections to Hong Kong’s legislature last summer, but was not revealed until May this year.
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