Home, office of pro-democracy Hong Kong media mogul firebombed

(Image credit: Lam Yik Fei/Getty Images)

last updated 12 January 2015

Early Monday morning, firebombs were thrown at the Hong Kong headquarters of Next Media Group and the home of its owner, Jimmy Lai, an outspoken advocate of recent pro-democracy marches.

Lai has been investigated for donations connected to the pro-democracy camp, and was the target of a 2009 murder plot. Police are attempting to figure out if the firebombing was connected to the suspected theft of newspapers from a Hong Kong newsstand, The New York Times reports. A newspaper owned by Next Media Group, the pro-democracy The Apple Daily, reported that its newspapers were the ones that had been stolen. And deepening the mystery, an officer investigating the theft climbed into a van, and after he was thrown out he fired his gun at the vehicle. Police wouldn't comment on whether that incident was linked to the bombing.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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