Hong Kong firefighter arrested in Japan for alleged rape of woman
Fire Services Department confirms an on-leave staff member involved in case in Japan Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department confirms Chinese national on holiday in city arrested in connection with rape allegation
Jess Ma6:29pm, 27 Apr, 2023
Hong Kong’s Fire Services Department has confirmed that a staff member has been involved in a case in Tokyo after Japanese media reported the arrest of a 30-year-old off-duty firefighter for the alleged rape of a woman.
Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun said the man, on holiday in the city with his wife, is alleged to have forced sexual intercourse with a Japanese woman in a male bathroom in a building in the central Chiyoda district on Sunday.
Media in Japan reported the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department had confirmed a Chinese national had been arrested on Sunday on suspicion of rape.
It was said that it was believed the man had told his wife he was going out to buy rice.
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Asahi Shimbun reported that it is alleged the firefighter dragged the woman, aged in her 20s, into the bathroom at about 10.30am on Sunday after he asked her to guide him to a ramen shop in the building.
The Fire Services Department on Thursday said it was looking into the case and added it valued discipline and integrity and took any violations of the law seriously.
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Jerry Nip Yuen-fung, chairman of the Hong Kong Fire Services Department Staffs General Association, said he had only heard of the incident through the media and would need more information to ascertain if the man involved was a colleague or not.
Nip said the usual practice was to suspend staff alleged to have committed crimes or behaved inappropriately before launching an investigation to decide if a disciplinary hearing was needed.
“The first thing would be to ascertain the legal responsibility of that colleague in the jurisdiction concerned and whether he could return to Hong Kong soon,” Nip said.
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“If he were to be charged locally, the department would contact him to notify him of a suspension until he could return to Hong Kong after local legal proceedings, where a disciplinary investigation could commence depending on the situation,” he explained.
“Once delinquent behaviour was established, he would be subject to a disciplinary hearing.”
Nip added that once colleagues’ identities as firefighters were known, any behaviour that could damage the department’s reputation would amount to a disciplinary investigation, even if they were off duty at the time.
