HONG KONG: Hong Kong customs is likely to press charges against the shipping company and the captain of the container ship which transported nine Singapore military vehicles into the city from Taiwan in November without a required licence.
Shipping company APL is expected to be issued with a summons while the captain of the container ship is to be charged with importing strategic commodities without a required licence, according to a government source with knowledge of the case. The move comes after the Customs and Excise Department sought legal advice from the Department of Justice. The nine Terrex armoured troop carriers were seized by customs officers on November 23 last year. The cargo was bound for Singapore from the Taiwanese port of Kaohsiung. The vehicles, which were not “specifically” declared in the cargo manifest, had been used in a military exercise in Taiwan. It was Hong Kong’s biggest seizure of “strategic commodities” in two decades. The seizurewas seen as a warning from Beijing over military ties between Singapore and the island, which China considers a renegade province.
Beijing said it hoped Singapore had “learned a lesson” and urged it to respect the one-China policy. In January, Singapore Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen said the Lion City’s military had learned a lesson from the saga. The legal action against the shipping company and the captain came after the customs department completed a probe into the incident in January and found the Singapore government could not be held responsible as it was only the consignee of the military vehicles.
Days before the vehicles were released and shipped back to the Lion City on January 27, Hong Kong’s customs chief, Roy Tang Yun-kwong, said that in the investigation process, the department did not detect any role by the Singapore government in the possible breach of the licensing requirement. Under Hong Kong’s Import and Export Ordinance, a licence is required for the import, export, re-export or transshipment of strategic commodities. The maximum penalty for failing to obtain a licence is an unlimited fine and seven years’ imprisonment.
