Teen who tried to blow up Aberdeen Police Station said he was inspired by comic book

A 17-year-old who attempted to blow up a Hong Kong police station in an act of revenge two years ago said he got the idea from a comic book. 

Leung Kwok-hung (no relation to the lawmaker) pleaded guilty to one count of making explosives with intent to endanger life or property, and one count of attempting to cause an explosion in High Court yesterday, HK01 reports.

Leung said he hatched his plot after reading a comic book, and studied how to make explosives online. 

Using pocket money given to him by his parents, the teenager made enough triacetone triperoxide (TATP) – a highly explosive substance which is easy to make, but very unstable – to fill five test tubes.

At around 6pm on October 28, 2014, Leung brought a box containing the test tubes into the report room at Aberdeen Police Station, and threatened to detonate them.

He had opened one of the tubes and taken a lighter out from his pocket when he was hemmed in by several police officers and subdued.

Leung then threw a piece of paper which detailed his motivation on the floor, reports Apple Daily.

On it, he said he had been “grabbed” and “intimidated” by two policemen when he was arrested for burglary in 2011, and alleged that the officers had threatened to beat him.

“What kind of impact would that have on the development of a 13-year-old child?” he wrote. The teen said he had been thinking about “how to make the police feel fear” in the three years after his arrest.

“If I don’t manage to do this, my life will be a failure,” it said.

A search of Leung’s home later showed he had enough materials to make enough TATP to fill 20 more tubes.

A bomb disposal officer later said setting off just one tube would have injured Leung and any officers within a 50-centimetre radius.

Leung will be sentenced on July 20, pending reports on his background, social welfare, and psychological and psychiatric assessments.

 


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