Aviation worker accused of illegally leaking information of CY Leung’s son
An HK Express employee was accused of two counts in Hong Kong court on Wednesday after he privately captured the information of ex-Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying's son's flight account and shared his personal data online.
James Kwok Sheung-man, the 22-year-old ground crew member, faced accusations of obtaining a computer with dishonest gain and intending to pervert the course of public justice before Magistrate Gary Lam Tsz-kan in the Eastern Magistrates’ Court today.
According to the court, Kwok logged into an account by using HK Express’ computer privately on December 23, 2019, to search for the flight information of Leung Chuen-yan, Leung Chun-ying’s son, taking photos of the data and sharing it with his friends.
Kwok was arrested on January 24, 2020, and admitted to conducting the information leakage, but he argued he learned Leung’s information from a post published by a colleague on a social media platform.
The colleague was arrested afterward but denied having posted the data involved, which led to Kwok being convicted with a count of perverting the course of public justice.
Today in the court, Magistrate Lam judged Kwok not guilty of the count since he has admitted to hacking the computer and his accusation to the colleague was not out of clearing himself.
However, Kwok’s other count of obtaining the computer privately was confirmed, and he will be bailed out pending a sentence on February 22.
Lai Siu-wang, 25, who also worked as an employee in HK Express and was arrested with Kwok during the same case, was sentenced to 80 hours of community service last August as he hacked into Leung’s flight account and used it to buy over HK$3,000 of airline meals and services.