A Hong Kong court has sentenced the father of a wanted activist to eight months for attempting to cash out an insurance policy worth more than HK$88,000 (US$11,251) in his daughter’s name, rejecting suggestions that the sentence amounted to ‘collective punishment’ against a relative of a fugitive.
Kwok Yin-sang, 69, became the first person jailed for trying to deal with the financial assets of an absconder – his 29-year-old daughter, Anna Kwok Fung-yee, a US-based activist who had a HK$1 million bounty placed on her head in 2023, for allegedly violating the Beijing-decreed national security law.
Anna Kwok, the executive director of the US-based Hong Kong Democracy Council, is wanted by national security police for allegedly colluding with foreign forces by instigating sanctions against Hong Kong and mainland China.
The elder Kwok, who runs a local engineering firm, was convicted of violating the city’s domestic national security law between January and February last year after twice attempting to cash out a life and personal accident insurance policy with AIA International. He had bought the policy for his daughter when she was 22 months old.
The defence argued that Kwok had paid all the premiums and believed the policy formed part of his own assets, giving him control over the funds.
Defence counsel Steven Kwan Man-wai told West Kowloon Court’s Acting Principal Magistrate Andy Cheng Lim-chi that the father should not be punished for his daughter’s fugitive status, saying otherwise it would amount to “collective punishment”.
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