Mainland Chinese man who barged into Hong Kong courtroom with cleaver jailed for criminal damage

A mainland Chinese-born renovation worker was on Monday jailed for 16 months for damaging a Hong Kong judge’s bench with a cleaver in an unprecedented courtroom safety scare that prompted enhanced High Court security.

Deputy district judge Don So Man-lung criticised Yu Zulin, 54, saying he caused chaos that disrupted court proceedings and damaged public property without any regard for law and order.

“Similar incidents had never happened before in Hong Kong’s judicial history,” the judge said after convicting Yu of one count of criminal damage.

But So accepted Yu’s claim of wanting to fulfil a promise to commit suicide before Mr Justice Wilson Chan Ka-shun, and therefore found him not guilty of possessing an offensive weapon and intimidating the judge at the High Court on October 17 last year.

Yu began to rise upon hearing the acquittals, with his hands clasped in a praying position as though he wanted to thank the judge. But he was immediately pulled back by a correctional services officer, and learned later that he would be convicted and jailed for 16 months for the criminal damage charge.

The court previously heard that Yu took a 12-inch cleaver to Chan’s courtroom while it was in session, after receiving an unfavourable judgment based on a civil case Chan presided over in 2013. The commotion prompted Chan and his clerk to flee the courtroom.