A retired Hong Kong police superintendent on Tuesday denied spying for Beijing, telling a London court he played no part in directing shadow policing operations for China on UK soil.
Yuen Chung Biu (袁松彪, also known as Bill Yuen), 65, a dual Chinese-British national, is on trial at the Old Bailey under the National Security Act alongside British Border Force official Wai Chi Leung (衛志良, also known as Peter Wai), 38.
Wai and Yuen are jointly charged with assisting a foreign intelligence service between December 2023 and May 2024, and with a second charge of foreign interference on May 1, 2024.
Photo: Reuters
Wai is also accused of misconduct in a public office by misusing his access to a British Home Office computer system.
Prosecutors said the men gathered intelligence and carried out surveillance on Hong Kong pro-democracy activists and dissidents living in the UK. Both deny all charges.
During cross-examination, British prosecutor Duncan Atkinson suggested that Yuen had never really left the employ of the Hong Kong government.
Yuen had instead moved seamlessly from a 20-year career in the Hong Kong police to a job at the Hong Kong Economic Trade Office in London only months after retiring, Atkinson said.
Yuen retorted that “if I really did something illegal for my authorities you would not pick up such suspicious things,” referring to evidence, such as WhatsApp messages between him and Wai, cited during the trial.
“I’m not dumb as that,” he said.
“If they really wanted to do so they would hire a Hong Kong intelligence officer to do it,” he added, during one of several heated exchanges. “They wouldn’t ask a 66-year-old man to do this and end up in this embarrassing situation.”
Yuen said his return to work had come at his wife’s prompting and after seeing a job advertisement for the role and not at the behest of the Hong Kong authorities.
The prosecutor pressed him on messages he sent asking Wai to “pay special attention” to British lawmakers and local councilors supportive of pro-democracy protesters and to “take some photos and do some research.”
Yuen said the purpose was to avoid “embarrassment” to his employer, not to gather intelligence.
He also denied asking Wai to carry out surveillance on high-profile Hong Kong pro-democracy activist Nathan Law (羅冠聰), despite Wai sending him photographs of Law’s car and license plate.
The pair were arrested after a team of operatives allegedly forced their way into the flat of Monica Kwong (鄺文琪), a Hong Kong fraud suspect, in Pontefract, England, on May 1 2024.
A ship that appears to be taking on the identity of a scrapped gas carrier exited the Strait of Hormuz on Friday, showing how strategies to get through the waterway are evolving as the Middle East war progresses. The vessel identifying as liquefied natural gas (LNG) carrier Jamal left the Strait on Friday morning, ship-tracking data show. However, the same tanker was also recorded as having beached at an Indian demolition yard in October last year, where it is being broken up, according to market participants and port agent’s reports. The ship claiming to be Jamal is likely a zombie vessel that
Japan is to downgrade its description of ties with China from “one of its most important” in an annual diplomatic report, according to a draft reviewed by Reuters, as relations with Beijing worsen. This year’s Diplomatic Bluebook, which Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s government is expected to approve next month, would instead describe China as an important neighbor and the relationship as “strategic” and “mutually beneficial.” The draft cites a series of confrontations with Beijing over the past year, including export controls on rare earths, radar lock-ons targeting Japanese military aircraft and increased pressure around Taiwan. The shift in tone underscores a deterioration
LAW CONSTRAINTS: The US has been pressing allies to send warships to open the Strait, but Tokyo’s military actions are limited under its postwar pacifist constitution Japan could consider deploying its military for minesweeping in the Strait of Hormuz if a ceasefire is reached in the war on Iran, Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Toshimitsu Motegi said yesterday. “If there were to be a complete ceasefire, hypothetically speaking, then things like minesweeping could come up,” Motegi said. “This is purely hypothetical, but if a ceasefire were established and naval mines were creating an obstacle, then I think that would be something to consider.” Japan’s military actions are limited under its postwar pacifist constitution, but 2015 security legislation allows Tokyo to use its Self-Defense Forces overseas if an attack,
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) yesterday faced a regional election battle in Rhineland-Palatinate, now held by the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD). Merz’s CDU has enjoyed a narrow poll lead over the SPD — their coalition partners at the national level — who have ruled the mid-sized state for 35 years. Polling third is the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which spells a greater threat to the two centrist parties in several state elections in September in the country’s ex-communist east. The picturesque state of Rhineland-Palatinate, bordering France, Belgium and Luxembourg and with a population of about 4 million,
RSS