By South China Morning Post | Created at 2024-09-27 07:04:53 | Updated at 2024-09-30 13:23:57
3 days ago
A Hong Kong court has sentenced three illegal immigrants from Vietnam to 17 months and two weeks in jail for working in an unlicensed restaurant selling dog and cat meat to fellow countrymen.
The trio’s defence lawyer told the West Kowloon Court on Friday that her clients did not know selling and eating dog and cat dishes in Hong Kong was illegal, as they came from a country where consumption of these animals were acceptable.
The Vietnamese diner owner Tran Quang Tan, 51, earlier pleaded guilty to operating a catering business without a licence. He hired his wife Le Thi Oanh, 44, and his son-in-law Nguyen Manh Dat, 26, to work in the restaurant at a tenement flat in Mong Kok earlier this year. The two had admitted to working illegally in the city.
All three of the defendants also pleaded guilty to selling dog meat as food and using dog and cat meat for consumption.
Magistrate Gary Chu Man-hon said that selling dog and cat meat not only violated the law but also aggravated their crime of illegal employment in the city as non-refoulement claimants, who did not have the right to work.
