Confiscated evidence on display at a press briefing given by Hong Kong police today about an alleged terror plot. Photo / AP
Confiscated evidence on display at a press briefing given by Hong Kong police today about an alleged terror plot. Photo / AP
Hong Kong police say they have arrested nine people on suspicion of engaging in terrorist activity, after uncovering an attempt to make explosives and plant bombs across the city.
The arrests come amid a politically divisive time in Hong Kong, two years after months of massive pro-democracy protests rocked the semi-autonomous Chinese city.
The arrests come a year after Beijing imposed a harsh new security law on the former British colony.
Of the nine arrested today, six are secondary school students. The group was attempting to make the explosive triacetone triperoxide (TATP) in a homemade laboratory in a hostel, police said.
Authorities said they seized apparatus and raw materials used to make explosives, operating manuals and about HK$80,000 in cash. Photo / AP
They planned to use the TATP to bomb courts, cross-harbour tunnels, railways and even planned to put some of these explosives in public rubbish bins "to maximise damage caused to the society", police said.
The nine arrested are five males and four females between 15 and 39 years old, according to Senior Superintendent Li Kwai-wah of the Hong Kong Police National Security Department.
Authorities said they seized apparatus and raw materials used to make the TATP, as well as a "trace amount" of the explosive. They also found operating manuals and about $14,508 (HK$80,000) in cash.
Police also froze about $108,928 (HK$600,000) in assets they say may be linked to the plot. Authorities claim the group all planned to leave Hong Kong for good, and were planning to conduct the sabotage in Hong Kong before they left the city.
TATP has been used in terrorist attacks worldwide. Since 2019, Hong Kong police have arrested multiple people over alleged bomb plots and for making TATP.
Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lam said at a regular news briefing today that she hopes the members of the public will "openly condemn threats of violence".
"They should not be wrongly influenced by the idea that there is only government tyranny ... but that breaking the law is in order, if you're trying to achieve a certain cause," she said. "They should not be influenced into thinking that they can find excuses to inflict violence."
Lam said that an envelope of "white powder" had been sent to her office. Police said today the substance was still being analysed but that they did not believe it to be dangerous.
In December 2019, authorities defused two bombs at a Hong Kong Catholic school. A remote-controlled homemade bomb was also detonated near a police car in 2019, when anti-government protests were ongoing.
