Hong Kong authorities have charged self-exiled former lawmaker Ted Hui with four counts of contempt of court, after he failed to show up for court hearings relating to nine criminal charges. He fled abroad last December with the help of Danish politicians.
The democrat posted the summons from the Department of Justice on his Facebook page on Saturday.
The summons, dated October 7, listed three counts of breaching bail conditions and one count of providing “false or misleading information” to the police. It requested that Hui appear at a hearing in January 2022.
“[T]he Defendant misled the Police and the District Court into believing that he would return to Hong Kong on 4 December 2020, after the purported official duty visit in Denmark when in fact he did not do so,” the notice read.
Hui left Hong Kong for the UK via Denmark last December under the guise of attending an environmental conference. He has since relocated to Australia.
When he left the city, Hui faced nine pending criminal charges, including charges relating to protests within the legislative chamber during his time as a lawmaker and a demonstration in July 2019, during which he allegedly erased video footage from another person’s phone.
The democrat was frequently on the ground during the 2019 pro-democracy protests and unrest, acting as an unofficial mediator between protesters and police on the frontlines.
The Security Bureau “strongly condemned” Hui’s decision to flee, vowing to track down fugitive offenders.
The Hong Kong authorities had sought the help of Danish authorities via an Interpol request in January, according to documents shared by Hui via Facebook. But Danish authorities had informed Hong Kong police they were “unable to help.”
‘Contempt for the court’
In response to the new charges, Hui slammed the city’s justice system as “contemptible,” saying his contempt for the court fit the definition of the term as something “lowly, insignificant, worthless or disgusting so as to despise it.”
“This is exactly my attitude towards Hong Kong’s courts and its entire judicial system,” he wrote on Saturday. “Against a contemptible and unjust court, I only have complaints, without any guilt.”
He added that the law had become a tool of oppression for the Chinese Communist Party, saying that a “self-disrespecting court does not deserve respect from the people.”
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