A 52-year old Filipino tourist in HongKong had been sentenced to 17 months in prison after he was found guilty of pickpocketing atTsim Sha Tsui MTR station.
Zhi Yu, a policeman from mainland China was touring Hong Kong with his wife and daughter in August. While at the MRT station with his family, pickpockets took his waist bag that contains his mobile phone, cash, credit card, and other personal belongings worth over $10,000. According to Zhi, Roxas was one of those pickpockets who took his bag.
The Filipino, A.B. Roxas claims he was coerced by Hong Kong policemen to confess to the crime, and he also confessed to not know the other suspect who remains at large. Barrister Duncan Percy, Roxas’ lawyer, said the investigator who handled Roxas’ case told him during his interrogation to admit to the crime and “write it down.”But prosecution witnesses are straightforward and unshaken during the cross-examination. The two interpreters present during the interrogation—one Filipino and a Chinese— also testified in court that the policeman did not badger Roxas to confess.
Magistrate So Wai-Tak of the Kowloon City Magistrates’ Courts on December 15 said the prosecution was able to prove beyond reasonable doubt that A.B. Roxas was one of the two pickpockets. The judge also said Roxas made contradictory statements claiming that he was suffering from hypertension during the police interrogation but later admitted that he was not suffering from any physical condition that time.
According to report Roxas is from Cebu and he has a wife and 8 children in the Philippines.