Singer-activist sentenced to 26 months in prison for sedition and laundering

Singer-activist Tommy Yuen Man-on was sentenced to 26 months in prison on Thursday after pleading guilty to sedition and laundering more than HK$710,000 raised through crowdfunding.

The former member of the disbanded Cantopop group E-kids was charged with posting hateful comments on his social media pages to celebrate the death of a police officer and lampooning a magistrate suffering from a heart condition.

He was also accused of working with his wife to invent the story of a 19-year-old female protester facing rioting charges to gain sympathy and solicit donations by selling cookies and pineapple.

Prosecutors earlier said Yuen had laundered nearly HK$718,788 as part of his fake charity appeal.

During sentencing, District Judge Ernest Lin Kam-hung said Yuen caused "harm to society" by harnessing his popularity to incite anger toward the SAR government and profit from it.

Lin added that the two charges were to supposedly start with 21 months of imprisonment each, with three of the months overlapping, but seeing Yuen had admitted to the charges, his sentence was shortened by one-third: a 26-month imprisonment.

Yuen, 43, was arrested in February 2022 and has been remanded in custody since. He pleaded guilty last month.