Ta Kung Pao reporter off the hook over car searches

Prosecutors on Thursday withdrew a charge against a Ta Kung Pao reporter over improper car plate searches he allegedly carried out last year.

Wong Kai-keung, 47, was instead put on a good behaviour bond for a year in the sum of HK$2,000, and was ordered to pay HK$1,000 in court costs to West Kowloon Magistracy.

A bind-over order is not a criminal record and the charge of “making a false statement” that Wong faced will be left on court file.

The Department of Justice said it agreed with the order, as Wong had a clean record and was working for the pro-Beijing newspaper when he made the licence plate searches.

Freelance journalist Bao Choy was convicted of the same offence and was fined HK$6,000 in April.

Choy’s licence plate searches were for an RTHK programme aimed at identifying some of the perpetrators of the 2019 Yuen Long mob attack.