Last PolyU riot case in 2019 sees trio convicted and one acquitted

Three people were convicted on Saturday of rioting outside Hong Kong Polytechnic University in 2019 while the fourth defendant who said he walked past the scene after providing an installation service was acquitted of the charge. 

This marked the 17th and last case of the protesters’ “rescue operation” in a bid to free those stranded within the PolyU campus, leading to a total of 213 police arrests. 

The convicted trio are Chan Lik-to, 25, Cheng Tsz-fung, 28, and Ho Chung-yin, 25. They, alongside Chung Tsz-kit, 32, were charged with and pleaded not guilty to rioting on Nathan Road between Waterloo Road and Hamilton Street on November 18, 2019. 

At West Kowloon Court on Saturday, deputy district judge Leung Ka-kie rejected all testimonies from the trio, saying they either didn’t make sense or were self-contradictory. 

Chan claimed he was heading to Mong Kok to eat with his friends and to have a foot massage, and Cheng said he walked past the crime scene when planning to visit a brothel on Temple Street. 

Ho also said he planned to pick up his girlfriend from work after visiting a prostitute from a building on Nathan Road but couldn’t since he was blocked by protesters on the street. 

Leung continued that people at the scene would definitely have known of an ongoing riot whether or not they heard the police’s calls. She added the riot lasted for at least 50 minutes with damage seen everywhere on the street and any reasonable and law-abiding citizen would have immediately left the area. 

She pointed out that Chan, Cheng, and Ho definitely knew they were at the scene of a riot. They also had sufficient time to leave since protesters had been confronting the police for a while but they opted to stay. 

The only logical deduction was that they intended to take part in the riot, and they weren’t innocent passers-by who just happened to be at the scene, Leung said. 

Meanwhile, the judge accepted Chung’s case and referred to the WhatsApp chats between him and his client that they had fixed the date for the installation service three days earlier. 

Leung also noted the client’s testimony that Chung was indeed installing the electronic appliance in his home at the time of the clash. The judge therefore believed Chung’s defense and acquitted him of the charge. 

She therefore found the trio guilty and adjourned the case to June 8 for mitigation and sentencing. All three will be on remand until then.