Two men appear in court accused of assisting Hong Kong intelligence service

Two men have appeared in court accused of assisting the Hong Kong intelligence service.

Chi Leung (Peter) Wai, 39, and Chung Biu Yuen, 64, who are also accused of foreign interference, appeared at a hearing at the Old Bailey on Friday wearing suits.

The charges against them allege that between December 20 2023 and May 2 2024, Wai and Yuen agreed to undertake information gathering, surveillance and acts of deception that were likely to materially assist a foreign intelligence service.

It is also alleged that on May 1 2024 they forced entry into a UK residential address, being reckless as to whether the prohibited conduct, or course of conduct of which it forms part, would have an interference effect.

They were not asked to enter pleas to the charges on Friday and arraignment was adjourned to November 22.

Prosecutor Duncan Atkinson KC said: “This is a case under the National Security Act. There are particular sensitivities to it.”

Wai, of Staines-upon-Thames, Surrey and Yuen, of Hackney, east London, were charged with the offences under the National Security Act following an investigation by the Metropolitan Police Counter Terrorism Command.

A provisional trial is set for the Old Bailey from February 10 next year.

The pair were originally charged alongside former Royal Marine, Matthew Trickett, who was an immigration enforcement officer and private investigator from Maidenhead, Berkshire.

He appeared at Westminster Magistrates’ Court with his co-defendants on May 13 and was granted bail. He was found dead in Grenfell Park, Maidenhead, after a report from a member of the public on May 19.

At a hearing at the Old Bailey on May 24, prosecutor Alistair Richardson said the Crown Prosecution had notified the court that the case against Trickett would be formally “discontinued” after the “unexplained” death.