A former Hong Kong bank executive has launched an appeal against his guilty conviction and 31-month jail sentence for rioting during the Yuen Long mob attack in 2019.
Jason Chan, a 42-year-old former vice president at Deutsche Bank, was among seven men found guilty by District Judge Stanley Chan last December and jailed last month.
According to local media, he filed his legal challenge at the High Court on Thursday – the last one to do so.
Co-defendant Kwong Ho-lam, who also received a 31-month jail sentence, lodged an appeal on Tuesday.
Five other men – including ex-opposition lawmaker Lam Cheuk-ting, who was jailed for 37 months for the offence – had already launched appeals against their convictions and sentences over recent weeks.
On July 21, 2019, more than 100 rod-wielding men dressed in white stormed Yuen Long MTR station and attacked passengers and pro-democracy protesters going home after attending a demonstration earlier that day.
The seven men were present at the scene and were seen in a standoff against the white-clad group.
They were later found guilty of taking part in a riot as the judge ruled that their behaviour at the scene was “provocative” and had “intensified the confrontation.”
Jason Chan, who was seen using a fire hose to spray water against the white-clad group, was ruled an “active participant” in the riot.
The judge said that Chan was striking back at the white-clad group and that his action also amounted to an attack.
The Yuen Long attack, which left 45 people injured, including Lam, marked a watershed during the months-long anti-extradition bill protests and unrest. Police were criticised for responding slowly to the incident, with some officers seen leaving the scene or interacting with the white-clad men.
The official account of the incident evolved over a year, with the authorities eventually claiming it was a “gang fight.” The police were later cleared of misconduct by the Independent Police Complaints Commission.
So far, 20 people have been convicted of rioting in relation to the attack. Among them, 12 were part of the white-clad group, while the rest were other people at the scene.
Protests erupted in June 2019 over a since-axed extradition bill. They escalated into sometimes violent displays of dissent against police behaviour, amid calls for democracy and anger over Beijing’s encroachment. Demonstrators demanded an independent probe into police conduct, amnesty for those arrested and a halt to the characterisation of protests as “riots.”
