HONG KONG - Three Hong Kong students were jailed on Dec 28 for up to six years over their roles in a conspiracy to blow up government buildings, with one pleading guilty to “terrorist activities” under the national security law.

The trio – now aged between 20 and 23 – were the last defendants convicted in a series of prosecutions launched more than two years ago against a little-known group called Returning Valiant.

The mostly student-led group promoted independence from China and called for resistance after a national security law was imposed in 2020 to quell dissent following huge, sometimes violent pro-democracy protests that kicked off the year before.

The group allegedly planned to make bombs using the explosive TATP in 2021, and to set them off in public areas, including court buildings.

Before they could build the explosives, Hong Kong’s national security police arrested them in July that year.

Ho Yu-wang, who was 17 when he was arrested, was “primarily responsible for making the explosives”, according to prosecutors.

Having been jailed for over two years, Ho was sentenced to six years in prison for “conspiracy to commit terrorist activities”, with the court declaring him to be “the ringleader” of the group.

Kwok Man-hei, who recently turned 21 in custody, and Cheung Ho-yeung, a 23-year-old university student brought into the case in April, both pleaded guilty to “conspiracy to cause explosions”.

Kwok was sentenced to 2½ years in prison, while Cheung received six years as he was the first to raise the idea of “targeting government offices, court buildings and police quarters”, the court was told.

Prosecutors also said Cheung provided HK$40,000 (S$6,740) for Ho to purchase equipment and chemicals.

“The hostile social atmosphere in 2019 and 2020 was such that it... might turn some people with previously good characters into radicals,” said High Court Judge Alex Lee, one of the judges hand-picked by the government to try national security cases.

“No matter what the defendants’ purpose might have been, the plan was without any doubt an evil one.”

Previously, 11 young people related to the group were convicted in the first two cases involving minors under the security law.

The sentencing of “children” had prompted the United Nations in 2022 to express “alarm”. REUTERS