Hong Kong police chief tried to discredit me, says girl who accused officers of gang rape
- Chris Tang told a local council meeting that the young woman was wanted on suspicion of misleading the force
- In a statement through her lawyers, she said that was an attempt to smear her, and that her complaint had not been handled properly
A teenager who said she was gang-raped by officers inside a Hong Kong police station last September has accused the head of the force of trying to discredit her when he publicly said she was wanted for giving a misleading statement.
The young woman and her lawyer also said they only learned about the police’s plan to arrest her from the media on Tuesday.
In a rebuttal issued on Wednesday, the teenager also revealed that the authorities had decided not to pursue her complaint any further. She criticised the force, saying it had failed to investigate her case “impartially, in strict confidence and with respect for my privacy and dignity”.
The accusations, made in a statement on the law firm’s Facebook page, came a day after Commissioner of Police Chris Tang Ping-keung told a Yuen Long District Council meeting that the young woman was now a “wanted person” and the force was planning to arrest her on suspicion of misleading officers.
Tang also said she had “absconded” and suggested she had fled Hong Kong.
The statement read: “Yesterday I learned from media reports that the commissioner has publicly said that I am facing arrest for ‘making a false statement’. He again chose to do so publicly, in a manner which any objective observer would be driven to conclude was directed at discrediting me.”
