Hong Kong Spy Case Shocks the UK

[00:00:00]They're trying to silence the voice of Hong Kongers, Hong Kong pro-democracy activists who've come to this country.

[00:00:05]Now, they were convicted in London under Britain's National Security Act for assisting a foreign intelligence service while targeting dissidents from Hong Kong and and pro-democracy figures who are now living in Britain.

[00:00:16]Now, prosecutors from the UK said that they carried out surveillance, they were gathering intelligence, and they were conducting deception on behalf of Hong Kong authorities. Now, they also said there was attention that was paid to politicians such as uh Ian Duncan Smith full of Hong Kong diplomat essentially paying individuals using the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office's bank account to undertake espionage on UK soil to monitor activists. One of them had a fake police warrant card that he threw out of the window before he was arrested. The two men who went to trial, uh their law- their lawyers were funded by the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office while at the same time the Chinese government and the Hong Kong government were claiming that they had nothing to do with these men. You also have a third man who's a British national who was in the military uh who unfortunately killed himself. He was originally uh remanded and he said that if uh he was given bail, he would he would kill himself and unfortunately, that's what happened. So, this case has there's all sorts of drama within it. They're trying to silence the voice of Hong Kongers, Hong Kong pro-democracy activists who've come to this country.

[00:01:21]And I think that goes far beyond the sort of routine surveillance that countries might do uh on each other.