Hong Kong protests: two months’ jail for university student charged with obstructing police pursuit of suspect
- Magistrate says Open University student Ma Tsz-hin’s actions blocked justice, turning down non-custodial plea
- Ma was accused of pushing officer who was chasing suspect, but he claims policeman bumped into him
A Hong Kong university student charged with obstructing a policeman who was pursuing a suspect has been jailed for two months, a penalty the sentencing magistrate said aligned with guidelines recently issued by a higher court in a similar prosecution.
Open University student Ma Tsz-hin must be imprisoned for “obstructing justice” in Sham Shui Po on September 30, West Kowloon Court Magistrate Lily Wong Sze-lai said on Friday, as she turned down the defence counsel’s plea for a non-custodial sentence.
The second-year student, 22, was said to have obstructed Sergeant Wong Yik-shek by pushing him in the chest, when the latter was pursuing a man in green clothes suspected of carrying offensive weapons near the shop. The sergeant subdued Ma after a 20-metre chase.
Wong testified that the push was strong enough to prevent him from apprehending the earlier suspect. In response, Ma said the sergeant had bumped into him by accident.
In her verdict, Magistrate Wong said it was only rational for someone who saw an officer chasing a suspect to avoid the conflict instead of getting closer to the policeman. She pointed out that if what Ma said was true, he should have blamed the officer for bumping him instead of running away immediately.