Chan Ho-tin walks free over protest-related charges

Chan Ho-tin, former convenor of the now-disbanded Hong Kong National Party, has been acquitted of assaulting police and participating in an unlawful assembly in Sheung Shui last year. 

Chan, 30, was accused of hitting a sergeant’s helmet and joining an unauthorized anti-government protest on July 13 last year during the social unrest. 

West Kowloon Court Magistrate Wong Sze-lai said there was inadequate evidence to indicate Chan was the offender as the assailant’s face was covered by a mask in the video footage, and thus clear Chan of the offences. 

The prosecutor said police found that the defendant had travelled between Tai Wai and Sheung Shui on the date after Chan was arrested around a month after the incident took place.

Both Chan and the offender had a dark mark on his right earlobe, and clothes similar to those the offender had worn were also seized at Chan’s home

But the judge said the check-out time registered by Chan’s octopus card from Sheung Shui MTR station was very close to the time that the incident took place, but it would have been too rush for the defendant to dash to the scene with such a short period of time. 

Wong also added there was nothing special about the offender’s clothing, that Chan could been simply wearing similar clothes. 

Speaking after the trial, the former pro-independence party leader said he was lucky to be acquitted of the charges, but many others are still suffering from what he called arbitrary arrest and prosecution. 

“We can see the government and the CCP is targeting people, which they call rioters and youngsters, systematically,” he said. 

But Chan said he had no plans to flee the city at the moment.

“I would take things as they come because I really love Hong Kong.”

Since the enactment of the national security law, multiple pro-democracy activists had been in exile to seek political asylum. Ousted lawmaker Sixtus Baggio Leung and former Democratic Party lawmaker Ted Hui Chi-fung were among the latest political figures to had fled the city.