Eight people have been convicted of rioting in Yau Ma Tei in 2019, a verdict that marks the last one for riot trials linked to protests sparked by a university campus siege.
A total of 11 defendants appeared at District Court on Friday after their trial in October. They had pleaded not guilty to rioting in the vicinity of Nathan Road and Gascoigne Road in Yau Ma Tei on November 18, 2019, as clashes broke out at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University in nearby Hung Hom.
Wong Chun-yuen, Cheung Kin-sum and Ovin Cheung were found not guilty by judge Peony Wong, InMedia reported.
The remaining eight – James Lam, Alan Lam, Lau Sze-ki, Leung Kin-long, Tam Kai-chung, Tsieh Shing-fung, So Ting-nam and Fung Man-kit – were found guilty.
The week-long siege at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University marked one of the most dramatic moments of the 2019 protests, as clashes between protesters and police turned the campus and the surrounding neighbourhood into a battleground.
Protesters gathered in nearby districts including Yau Ma Tei and Tsim Sha Tsui in support of those stuck on the campus, setting up road blocks and lighting fires. A total of 213 people were arrested on November 18, 2019, including for alleged rioting, and those charged were split into several cases.
The ruling on Friday marked the last verdict to be handed down, with other cases relating to the campus clashes nearing the end of their legal proceedings more than three years on.
Testimonies ‘unreliable’
Judge Wong cast doubt over the reliability of some of the defendants’ testimonies while handing down the verdicts on Friday.
The judge said it was questionable that Lam said he wanted to go to the scene of the protest to “observe” the actions of law enforcement officers. Lam had testified during the trial his father was a retired officer and that as a supporter of the police, he wanted to see for himself how the police were handling the unrest.
Wong said if he truly supported the police, he would believe that they were not abusing their powers, and that he could watch the protests online instead of going to the scene himself.
Wong also raised eyebrows over Tam’s testimony, in which Tam said he was in Yau Ma Tei that night to pass a portable charger to a communications student reporting on the protests. The judge said besides police finding a charger and cash on him, his backpack also had black gloves, saline solution and an extra change of clothes, among other items that were often associated with protesters.
As for the three who were acquitted, Wong said he accepted defendant Wong Chun-yuen’s evidence that he was reporting on the protests for an online outlet called Pragmatic Media, and had lost his press pass in the chaos. Wong had called another reporter from Pragmatic Media to give evidence during the trial.
Judge Wong also said he believed the testimonies of Cheung Kin-sum and Ovin Cheung, who were both acquitted. Cheung Kin-sum said during the trial that he left work in Yau Ma Tei at around 11 pm when he was knocked over by a crowd of people running. Evidence showed his work records from that day. Ovin Cheung testified that she was managing a tutorial centre in Yau Ma Tei that night. Wong said she had already arrived at the centre before the protests began.
Thursday’s case involved 23 defendants, 12 of whom had pleaded guilty earlier.
Protests broke out across Hong Kong in the summer of 2019, a response to an extradition bill that grew into a wider demonstration against the Hong Kong and Beijing governments. Around 10,250 people were arrested in connection with the unrest, many of them young people.
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