Veteran activist Koo Sze-yiu has been handed a HK$6,000 fine for breaching fire safety regulations over placing objects in the fire escape of an industrial building.
Koo, who was charged with one count of obstructing a means of escape and another of failing to comply with a fire hazard abatement notice, appeared before Deputy Magistrate Eric Yao at the Kowloon City Magistrates’ Courts on Monday morning.
Appearing without representation, he said the government had purposefully targeted him, as other people also took up space in the building’s open areas, according to Ming Pao.
“I’m the only one who can’t even put down a toothpick,” he said. “The Fire Services Department [is conducting] targeted, selective prosecution.” The activist added that the confiscated belongings were worth tens of thousands of dollars, and that some HK$9,000 in cash stored in a toolbox had also been seized by fire services officers in April.
Earlier this month, Koo filed an application to the Small Claims Tribunal to claim a total of HK$59,000 for the losses.
Koo, who has previously been diagnosed with stage 4 rectal cancer, was in hospital for treatment when his belongings were confiscated, according to The Witness. He was not informed of the Fire Services Department’s operation.
In response to Koo’s argument on Monday, judge Yao said he was “not too concerned with whom the prosecution did or did not prosecute,” adding that the role of a judge was to handle cases that prosecutors took to the court.
On the obstructing means of escape charge, fire station officer Cheung Kwok-chiu told the court he and his colleagues found wooden crates and two piles of Koo’s belongings in the stairs in a fire escape at Winsum Industrial Building in Lai Chi Kok.
Cheung’s name is translated from media reports in Chinese.
Yao on Monday found Koo guilty and handed down a HK$6,000 fine.
The judge adjourned the ruling for the latter charge, which will be handled as a separate case, to January 9.
He said he would leave the case for another judge, saying that he realised it would be unfair if both cases were tried by him, as there would be speculation that he had preconceived impressions of Koo after handling the first case.
Koo also faces a separate charge under the sedition law over a plan to stage a protest against the overhauled District Council elections. He was denied bail last week, after he was arrested by police from the National Security Department.
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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