Lawmaker gets jail term for assault in Taipei
Pro-democracy lawmaker Wong Yuk-man has been sentenced to one month in jail by a Taiwanese court for assaulting Hong Kong district councillor Andrew Fung Wai-kwong while they were in Taipei last year.
Fung, a former Democratic Party member, yesterday showed reporters a judicial notice handed down by the Taipei District Court on Wednesday.
The judgment gives Wong, formerly a People Power member, an option to stay out of jail by paying NT$1,000 (HK$257) for each day of the sentence.
Wong, who has denied the attack, is understood to be preparing to appeal against the conviction through his representative in Taiwan.
Wong was tried in absentia in Taipei because Hong Kong has no extradition agreement with Taiwan.
"I think Wong's absence from the trial showed disrespect for the judicial process," said Fung, a councillor for the Southern District.
Wong has been accused of punching Fung in the face when the two men ran into each other outside the Kuomintang headquarters in Taipei in August last year, following Facebook postings by Fung that criticised him.
The two were on separately organised trips to observe the island's presidential election.
The ruling marks Wong's second criminal conviction in as many months after a Hong Kong magistrate found him guilty of leading an unlawful assembly in 2011. He was sentenced to six weeks in jail, suspended for 14 months.
Both Wong and Fung have been controversial figures in their respective political circles.
Wong last month quit the People Power group he founded in 2011, while Fung, a former core democrat, quit after he applied for but failed to get an undersecretary's position in Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying's cabinet.
