Hong Kong jails homeless Vietnamese man for robbery

By Nguyen Quy   March 7, 2019 | 06:30 pm PT
A Hong Kong court Tuesday sentenced a Vietnamese man to four years and seven months in prison for robbery.

Ngo The Manh, 42, who was unemployed and entered Hong Kong as an undocumented migrant, was found guilty of breaking into a flat and threatening 67-year-old Cheung Kam-hung with a kitchen knife and grabbing his wallet in May 2017, the South China Morning Post reported.

According to the indictment, Cheung was resting in bed in his fourth-floor flat in a tenement building when Manh barged through the unlocked back door and threatened him with a meat cleaver he found in the kitchen.

Out of fear, Cheung sat silently and didn’t resist while Ngo took his wallet, containing cash worth around $70, an ATM card and other identification papers, and fled the scene.

Cheung immediately called the police and reported the incident.

Manh turned himself in at a police station the same day.

"Out of momentary greed, I stole money to buy food," he told a police officer, as cited by SCMP.

In Hong Kong, armed robbery carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

Last year, Hong Kong police arrested two Vietnamese men, believed to be illegal immigrants, for allegedly breaking into a luxury villa by climbing a balcony and stealing HK$300,000 ($38,400) in cash and some jewelry.

 
 
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