But in the sky above them, high, someone would be aware of the danger they faced.
A non-stop sea crossing in an open motorboat using a 12 will usually take about 14 hours, dangerous and exhausting, with a serious risk of capsizing. But soon 12 people crossed the maritime border between Hong Kong and mainland China, their boats being intercepted by a coast guard guard ship.
They have since been detained in China, denounced by Beijing as “separatists” and charged with a number of crimes, including illegal border crossing and smuggling, threatening to hang potentially more serious national security charges. Was. Back in Hong Kong, their families have been desperate for their return, saying the lawyers ’denied cases were denied and abused while 12 were in Chinese custody.
“Public security officials will protect the legal rights of suspects in accordance with the law,” police said in Shenzhen, across the border from Hong Kong to China.
Speaking on Tuesday, Hong Kong leader Kerry Lame said the fugitives “chose to flee, and at the time of fleeing they had entered another jurisdiction and committed the crime of entering another place illegally.”
“They will have to face legal consequences in that jurisdiction,” Lame added. “It’s as simple and straightforward as that.”
She rejected any suggestion that, before the 12 people were arrested, the Hong Kong government was aware of or involved in the case.
But, according to open-source flight data first reported by the Hong Kong newspaper Apple Paul Daily, the Government Flying Services (GFS) aircraft was deployed to and from East Hong Kong above Po Toi Othi at 4 a.m. on August 23 Area for more than four hours.
The speed of the aircraft – recorded by FlightAware, an aircraft tracking service – exactly fits the fugitive travel timeline announced by the Hong Kong government.
G.F.S. The plane circled the Po Toi O area until 7:30 a.m., when it began flying in a southeastern direction, the direction the speedboat took for open water. Less than an hour after returning to the base by plane, the Chinese coastguard stopped the boat at nine o’clock in the morning.
G.F.S. According to information provided by, the aircraft includes – a Bombardier Challenger 605 – equipped for search and rescue, airborne surveillance and aerial photography.
B-LVB, publicly available flight data for a particular aircraft shows that the August 23 Gust flight was out of the ordinary: between August 18 Gust and October 7 it did not fly at 7:30 a.m. on any other day, nor did it make any other flights. More than three hours during this period
On Thursday, Hong Kong activist Joshua Wong shared a partial flight plan he said was leaked by a whistle blower inside the flying service. CNN Unable to independently verify the log, it shows an operation called “P-OPS”, which Wong said was a “police operation”, carried out for a period tracked by the flightwear.
A spokesman for Hong Kong’s security bureau – which oversees police, immigration enforcement and the Flying Service – said “according to established practice, investigative details involved in aircraft deployments and flight missions will not be disclosed.”
He added, “Hong Kong police have reiterated from time to time that 12 Hong Kong suspects were arrested by mainland authorities for the crime of illegally crossing the border.” “The operation has nothing to do with the Hong Kong police.”
The government or police may have known 12 fugitives, one of whom was facing charges under the city’s national security law, planned to flee Hong Kong, and suggested letting them go – bringing them to China in large fines – sparking widespread outrage in the city.
Wong said in a statement, “I am surprised and the Hong Kong government has clearly teamed up with Chinese authorities to explicitly put activists at greater risk in terms of its jurisdiction.”
In a press release on Thursday, a group representing the families of the fugitives accused the government of “conspiring” to hand over their loved ones to China and demanded their immediate release.
The latter was a small protest outside the Flying Service headquarters on Thursday, but police had quickly break it, who was accused of breaking the restrictions on the demonstrators to collect public coronavirus.
Hong Kong has its own judicial system, under the “one country, two systems” principle, aimed at protecting the city’s limited autonomy until 2047, which does not enjoy the protection of legal and human rights on the mainland.
The law, which the government says is needed to restore order, has led many leading activists to flee abroad.
CNN’s Rebecca Wright, Evan Watson and Isaac Ye contributed to the reporting.
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