A Hong Kong man has been sentenced to seven years in prison over his involvement in the 2019 mob attack in Yuen Long, following his conviction in a retrial.
District Judge Eddie Yip on Tuesday jailed Wong Chi-wing, 60, for rioting and wounding with intent on the night of July 21, 2019, when over a hundred white-shirted men stormed Yuen Long MTR Station.
The mob attack, which left dozens injured, marked a watershed in the pro-democracy protests and unrest that year, with the police being heavily criticised for responding slowly and failing to stop the violence in time.
Wong was among eight people facing rioting and wounding charges over the July 2019 attack. He was initially found not guilty in 2021, while seven others were convicted and sentenced to jail.
However, the Court of Appeal quashed his acquittal in August, ordering his case to be retried.
Judge Yip, who found Wong guilty last week, said on Tuesday that the man’s role in the attack was “in no way inferior” to that of his co-defendants, who were convicted in 2021.
Wong “was not just throwing a few punches; instead, he was part of the white-clad group which indiscriminately threatened, provoked, and attacked people in the station and in the train carriage,” Yip said in Cantonese.
He sentenced Wong to seven years behind bars for each of the two charges, with the two jail terms to be served concurrently.
To date, 21 people have been convicted of rioting over the Yuen Long attack. Among them, 13 belonged to the “white-clad” group, including Wong.
The remaining eight were other people on the scene, including ex-opposition lawmaker Lam Cheuk-ting, who was sentenced to three years and one month in February.
Lam is also serving a separate jail term of six years and nine months for conspiring to commit subversion in the city’s largest national security case. Lam has launched an appeal in both cases.
The official account of the Yuen Long attack evolved over a year, with the authorities eventually claiming it was a “gang fight.”
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.”
