By Jessie Pang
HONG KONG (Reuters) – Seven Hong Kong prison officers were arrested and suspended from work on Wednesday, the city’s Correctional Services Department said, after local media reported officers sexually assaulted and gang-raped a woman after a party over the weekend.
The seven correctional service officers, aged in their 20s and 30s, have been suspended from their duties and any violation of law would not be tolerated, the Correctional Services Department said in an emailed statement.
Broadcaster Cable TV said the female victim had been invited to a party in an apartment complex in Hong Kong’s bustling Tsim Sha Tsui district which seven correctional officers also attended.
Three male officers are suspected of raping the 31-year old woman at the apartment, while four other officers masturbated as they watched the incident by the bed, the South China Morning Post reported. The victim told the police she was drunk and passed out before she was raped, the paper said.
She reported the case to the police after she regained consciousness the next morning alone and naked in the flat, the paper said.
Police did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
(Reporting by Jessie Pang; editing by Farah Master and Conor Humphries)