A retrial has found two Hong Kong men guilty of rioting during the 2019 pro-democracy protests and unrest, nearly six years after the event.
On Monday, Chan Lok-sun, 31, and Lam Hin-shing, 21, were convicted of rioting. They had previously been acquitted of the charge in December 2021, but the government successfully appealed against the acquittal in May 2024, sending their case to a retrial.
Deputy District Judge David Ko, who presided over both the trial and the retrial, overturned his previous rulings on Chan and Lam and found that the pair’s presence in Wan Chai on October 6, 2019, was “encouraging or abetting other rioters.”
The court previously heard that over 500 protesters gathered on Hennessy Road in Wan Chai on that day to oppose an anti-mask law during the months-long protests and unrest. The protesters formed umbrella formations, shone laser pens and threw petrol bombs at police during a violent clash, according to the prosecution.
Chan and Lam told the court in March that they were passing through Wan Chai without knowing that a riot was taking place there, but were caught in the clash and arrested.
In his verdict, Ko rejected the pair’s testimony that they were unaware of what was happening around them, calling the pair’s accounts “untrustworthy and unreliable.”
Ko said the riot lasted “for a long time” on that day and that the pair “must have had enough time to realise the danger and leave Hennessy Road.”
The judge also said that they were carrying defensive gear like gas masks when they were arrested, which created a “compound effect” that showed the pair’s intention to participate in the riot.
He placed the pair on remand and scheduled sentencing for June 25.
The pair will be sentenced alongside three other defendants in the case who earlier pleaded guilty to rioting when the retrial commenced in March.
Ex-district councillor Lee Yue-shun, who was one of two people acquitted of conspiracy to subvert state power last year in the city’s largest national security case, was among observers in the public gallery during Monday’s proceedings. A total of 45 other pro-democracy figures were found guilty and sentenced to up to 10 years behind bars in November.
Retrial
Ko acquitted the five defendants of rioting in December 2021, ruling at that time that the court “could not draw the only irresistible inference” that the five had participated in the riot.
But the judge found them guilty of violating Hong Kong’s mask ban at that time. Chan was sentenced to 10 weeks in jail, while Lam – a minor at that time – was sentenced to a rehabilitation centre.
Lam told the court on Monday that he had served seven months in the rehabilitation centre.
In June last year, three Court of Appeal judges found Ko’s ruling “perverse,” quashed the five’s acquittals of the rioting charge, and ordered their case to be retried by Ko.
Protests erupted in June 2019 over a since-axed extradition bill, escalating into sometimes violent displays of dissent against police behaviour, amid calls for democracy and anger over Beijing’s encroachment.
Monday also marked the sixth anniversary of a million people protesting against the controversial extradition bill in Hong Kong, considered the beginning of the months-long protests and unrest in 2019.
