The city's highest court has rejected an application of appeal from five of the seven police officers jailed for assaulting activist Ken Tsang Kin-chiu during the 2014 Occupy movement.
ADVERTISEMENT
SCROLL TO CONTINUE WITH CONTENT
A three-judge panel in the Court of Final Appeal - Chief Justice Geoffrey Ma Tao-li and permanent judges Roberto Ribeiro and Andrew Cheung Kui-nung - quashed the five's application to overturn their convictions of assault causing bodily harm.
Tsang said it had been six years and that justice had come too late, adding he will seek compensation after the criminal proceedings had finished.
"Although they could not overturn their conviction and sentence, their prison terms have been shortened significantly," he said.
He said Hong Kong's rule of law had decayed and the seven officers may not need to take responsibility for their behavior at present.
The seven officers - consisting of chief inspector Wong Cho-shing, 52, senior inspector Lau Cheuk-ngai, 33, detective sergeant Pak Wing-bun, 46, and constables Chan Siu-tan, 35, Kwan Ka-ho, Lau Hing-pui, 42, and Wong Wai-ho, 40 - were charged in October 2015.
They were convicted at District Court in February 2017 of taking Tsang into a dark corner in Admiralty and assaulting him. The seven officers were sentenced to two years in prison.
However, Lau Hing-pui and Wong Wai-ho won an appeal and had their convictions overturned at the Court of Appeal in July last year.
The remaining five were sent back to jail but saw their sentence reduced to a range of 15 to 18 months. They have all served their sentences.
Only Wong Cho-shing showed up in court yesterday but he did not respond to media questions.
The officers' lawyers - senior counsel Clive Grossman and senior counsel Edwin Choy Wai-bond - argued that the original trial judge did not correctly assess the authenticity and completeness of the news footage and admitted it as evidence to proceedings.
Grossman said the prosecution did not call the cameraman of the news footage to testify in court and the defense could not examine the witness to verify the footage's authenticity.
He also questioned if the footage had been tampered with, due to the video being edited.
Choy argued it was not dependable for the court to convict the officers based only on the video from an open source as people can upload and download videos from YouTube. People can also use various means to edit the original video.
But the three judges did not think the trial judge had made a mistake.
Ma agreed that the footage is the key to the cops' conviction, but he argued why the defense did not raise the issue if such evidence was important and that the issue should have been handled before the trial.
He also said the original judge and the Court of Appeal had assessed the video and ruled out reasonable doubt.
The original judge had heard both sides' arguments and considered all evidence before making the verdict. The defense should not take something out of context, Ma said.
All three judges agreed to reject the five officers' application after the court could not see an arguable issue for an appeal.
