It didn’t take Amina Bokhary, the hellraising 43-year-old niece of a top judge, very long to land back in a Hong Kong courtroom today, though there will be a bit of a wait while officials track down someone to hear the case who doesn’t pose a conflict of interest.
Bokhary was charged with possession of dangerous drugs in the Eastern Magistrate’s Court today after allegedly being caught with a small amount of cocaine in front on Queen’s Road Central in May, HK01 reports. However, the judge in the case, Principal Magistrate Bina Chainrai, recused herself due to her familiarity with Bokhary’s family.
That familiarity, however, didn’t stop Chainrai from releasing Bokhary on bail, though she did postpone the trial until Oct. 4, when another judge will hear the case.
Bokhary’s uncle is Justice Syed Kemal Shah Bokhary, a non-permanent judge in the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal who has been one of the city’s top judges since the court’s inception in 1997.
Amina Bokhary, meanwhile, has a long history of run-ins with the law, and has been the subject of controversy thanks to the widespread public perception that her family’s legal connections have led to unfairly lenient sentences — which have been mostly non-custodial in nature, despite her record of assault offenses.
In March this year, Bokhary was accused of attacking her parents in their Happy Valley home, and was placed on the wanted list for a short period after failing to report to the police. In January, she was arrested for driving on a suspended license and without third-party insurance, and later jailed for six weeks, according to HK01.
Bokhary’s driver’s license was also revoked for three years in 2010, when she slapped a police officer after refusing to take a breathalyzer test in the wake of a traffic accident.
In 2008, she was fined HK$1,000 and ordered to complete 240 hours of community service after a scuffle with a taxi driver and a policewoman.
Bokhary’s series of run-ins with the law began all the way back in 2001, when she was charged with assaulting police, vandalism, and drug possession of dangerous drugs.
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