Jury dissolved for Marco Leung's death inquest

The jury for the death inquest of protester Marco Leung Ling-kit will have to be re-selected and the hearing will start all over again, after a juror said she cannot understand the Cantonese spoken in court clearly. 

This case originally featured a jury composed of three men and two women. Yet one of the female jurors said she wished to quit the jury as she could not understand the testimony in court, which is spoken in Cantonese. 

Coroner Ko Wai-hung hoped to have a jury that could hear all testimony and therefore dissolved the jury. A new jury will be re-selected tomorrow. 

Apart from this case, coroner Ko Wai-hung also handled the case of 15-year-old Christy Chan Yin-lam’s death and 22-year-old Alex Chow Tsz-lok’s death. 

The hearing is expected to last 12 days, with 21 witnesses to be summoned in the absence of his family who could no longer be reached. 

Leung fell to his death outside Pacific Place on June 15, 2019, a day before the June 16 parade in which over 2 million Hongkongers participated. 

Leung’s family members didn’t appear in court today. Police officers visited the address on Leung’s insurance form but the flat was already occupied by another tenant since December 2019. Officers also found out that Leung’s family moved out in August 2019 and there was no contact information left by them. 

The court summoned another police officer Siu Wai-kit to testify, who had taken photos of the scene in Pacific Place. According to Siu there were two entrances at East and West to the podium. He said that both entrances were cordoned off by boards, and confirmed that there was no sign to stop the public from getting in. 

Multiple news footages were played in court as well, showing that Leung was standing dangerously on the podium at around 4pm that day. At night Leung climbed out of the site. Firemen tried to pull him back but failed. Leung fell onto the ground and was certified dead as he was rushed to hospital. 

The death inquest will continue tomorrow.