‘Threatened’ Hong Kong judge says angry man brandishing cleaver in his courtroom led him to flee in fear
Decoration worker on trial for criminal intimidation and other charges years after his civil claim against police officers was rejected
A Hong Kong judge on Friday testified he fled from his courtroom during a hearing last October after a deeply angry man shouted his way to his bench and drove his clerk away.
“I had never heard anyone speak to a judge so loudly in court,” Mr Justice Wilson Chan Ka-shun testified. “I felt threatened, startled, and I didn’t know why [my clerk] ran away from the court. I realised there must be some danger. I was a bit frightened, so I ran.”
Chan was testifying against decoration worker Yu Zulin, 53, who has denied three counts of criminal intimidation, criminal damage and possession of an offensive weapon.
District Court heard the two men first crossed paths in 2013, when Chan rejected Yu’s civil claim against four police officers for HK$660,000 (US$84,000) over injuries he purportedly suffered after an arrest operation in 2008.
Yu appealed against Chan’s judgment and successfully reopened his case in a retrial, but again failed in his claim.