JULIE CHU JULIE.CHU@SCMP.COM
PUBLISHED : Thursday, 06 August, 2015, 2:31pm
UPDATED : Thursday, 06 August, 2015, 5:39pm
Yip Kim-wah, 39, is one of two defendants facing charges over a chopping attack on former Ming Pao chief editor Kevin Lau last year. Photo: David Wong
One of two alleged attackers of a Hong Kong journalist claimed public security officers in mainland China forced him to confess because the central government did not want the assault case to become politicised, the High Court heard this morning.
The attack on February 26 last year severely injured Kevin Lau Chun-to, former chief editor of Chinese-language newspaper Ming Pao. Lau suffered cuts to his left shoulder, back and both legs, with some of the wounds quite deep and nerves in his legs damaged, the court heard earlier. The injuries kept him in hospital until July 15 last year.
That March, alleged attackers Yip Kim-wah and Wong Chi-wah, both 39, were arrested while having dinner in Guangdong, Yip testified today.
He had gone to mainland China with his friend Wong to visit other friends, he said, but officers took the pair to a detention centre and detained them separately.
Yip told the court he was beaten up and interrogated for two whole days.
The torture continued, he said, until one day when a few uniformed officers who seemed to be of a more senior rank showed up and said to him: “The central government did not want the case to become a political issue. You had better confess everything.”
The officers also said that if Yip refused to co-operate, he would not be sent back to Hong Kong, but would face trial on the mainland followed by a death sentence or indefinite jail term, the court heard.
Yip said the officers also showed him law books saying mainland courts could try people who had allegedly committed offences in Hong Kong. They had documents showing Hongkonger Cheung Tze-keung as one of the examples.
The defendant said he remembered Cheung was eventually executed on the mainland.
“I could only compromise,” Yip told the court. He agreed to sign whatever documents the officers asked him to sign.
The co-defendants deny one joint count each of causing grievous bodily harm and stealing a motorcycle they allegedly used in the assault. Yip also pleads not guilty to a charge of stealing a vehicle licence.
Yip said he did not know Lau, but admitted he went to Kowloon Tong with Wong between February 25 and 26 last year – to try to get his outstanding salary from a contractor.
He had asked Wong to accompany him on those two days, but the pair failed to locate the contractor, so they crossed the border instead for a massage on the afternoon of February 26 and stayed for a few days to visit friends.
The trial continues before Madam Justice Esther Toh Lye-ping this afternoon.
http://m.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-crime/article/1847027/beijing-wanted-avoid-assault-journalist-kevin-lau-becoming
