A 64-year old woman accused by Hong Kong national security police of perverting the course of justice has appeared in court and been denied bail.
Lin Ming-yee, who was detained earlier on suspicion of conspiracy to commit forgery and publishing “seditious” posts, will appear in court for a bail review next Wednesday.
Lin, along with co-defendants Ngan Hok-kin and Cheung Ka-chun, both 33, and Ho Cheuk-wai, 39, appeared before Magistrate Jeffrey Sze at West Kowloon Magistrates’ Courts on Thursday. The case of the latter three will be mentioned on August 10.
Ngan’s bail was set at HK$10,000 on condition he hands over his travel documents, and reports to police once a week. Ho and Cheung did not apply for bail. Lin reserved her right to apply again for bail within eight days of her arrest.
Conspiracy to forgery
Lin, Ngan, and Cheung are each charged with conspiracy to create a false instrument – a writ of summons with false signatures – between March 1-6 this year. Lin along with Ho faces an additional charge of making a false instrument on or about March 6.
The four defendants are accused in the charge sheet of forging signatures “with the intention that they or another shall use it to induce somebody to accept it as genuine, and by reason of so accepting it to do or not to do some act to his own or any other person’s prejudice.”
Obstructing justice
Lin has also been charged with one count of perverting the course of justice. Her appearance in court on Thursday came a day after her arrest, along with a 30-year-old man.
Lin is accused of approaching someone named Mui Ming-fung, and asking Mui to convey a message to Ho and Cheung, requesting them to say they had signed the forged writ themselves, “with intent to obstruct and hinder the investigations of the Hong Kong Police Force and criminal proceedings.”
Ho and Cheung are currently in detention over their alleged involvement in four bomb plots in 2020.
Lin was also among six people arrested by national security police on Tuesday last week and granted bail until her re-arrest. She is suspected of endangering national security by repeatedly publishing “seditious” posts on social media which stirred “hatred against the government, advocated Hong Kong independence and incited the use of violence,” according to a police statement last week.
Sedition is not covered by the Beijing-imposed national security law, which targets secession, subversion, collusion with foreign forces and terrorist acts and mandates up to life imprisonment. Those convicted under the sedition law – last amended in the 1970s when Hong Kong was still a British colony – face a maximum penalty of two years in prison.
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