A Hong Kong court has jailed four men for up to three years and one month for rioting during the 2019 anti-government protests, in the latest round of sentences following authorities’ pledge to pursue those involved regardless of the time elapsed.
The District Court on Monday sentenced the four defendants for their roles in clashes at and around Polytechnic University in Hung Hom, the site of some of the most intense confrontations between protesters and police during the unrest.
Judge Edmond Lee Chun-man set starting sentences of 54 to 57 months for a joint charge of rioting before reducing each term by 17 to 25 months to reflect the defendants’ guilty pleas and the 6½-year delay between the offences, committed between November 14 and 20, 2019, and sentencing.
Former tutor Chan Yuen-ming, 33, received a total sentence of 21 years and seven months after the court ordered his latest 37-month term to run consecutively with an earlier 18½-year sentence for an unrelated drug trafficking case.
Chan’s lawyers argued that he had suffered a relapse of post-traumatic stress disorder while on remand, as the prison environment triggered memories of his alleged detention and torture in a Chinese-run scam compound in Myanmar in 2022.
However, Lee declined to grant any further reduction, citing a government psychologist’s assessment that Chan showed “no significant psychological distress” and appeared to have adapted to prison life.
The judge added that Chan bore responsibility for the length of his sentence.
