Three Filipina asylum-seekers got off the hook when charges of illegal work filed against them and a fourth defendant were dropped by the prosecution in a hearing held in Tuen Mun court.
Magistrate Merinda Chow told Jean S. Banuag, Conchita D. Egyab and Rebecca M. Martin to leave after the prosecutor withdrew the charges.
A similar charge against a fourth person, Dolores G. Malao, was also dismissed. But the defendant was kept in custody because she was also charged with breaching a deportation order.
The prosecutor told the court he was withdrawing the charge of illegal work against the four women based on the statement of a warehouse owner who said the Filipinas were in the premises scavenging for discarded old clothes.
Malao, a former domestic worker, was remanded in jail and told to return to court on Oct. 20 after the prosecution applied for a three-week adjournment for legal advice.
The case stemmed from a raid conducted by immigration and police officers on a used clothes warehouse in Yuen Long on Feb 24 this year.
A prosecution report said the four women were seen sorting and folding used clothes when the raiding team arrived.
The officers found out that Banuag, Egyab and Martin were torture claimants whose applications for third-country asylum were being processed. They were arrested on suspicion they were working illegally in Hong Kong. Malao, on the other hand, was arrested after a record check showed she was issued a deportation order on Jan 18, 2016 for another conviction.
