The Eastern Court magistrate also found Chung must have known that his pulling of the flag would likely be considered a breach of peace.

Chung was convicted of one count of desecrating the national flag, and another of taking part in an unlawful assembly. Both offences are punishable by a fine and up to three years in prison.

He will be sentenced in West Kowloon Court on December 29, pending reports on his suitability for a training, detention or rehabilitation centre.

Chung appeared calm upon hearing the verdicts, but shouted “Hongkongers hang in there” before he was led away from the dock.

Before he was charged, he attempted to seek protection at the US consulate, but was arrested before he managed to enter the building. That case will be heard again in January.

Prosecutors had accused Chung, founder of the now-defunct Studentlocalism group, of damaging a national flag that belonged to the Defend Hong Kong Campaign when the pro-establishment group assembled in the designated protest area of the Legislative Council on May 14, 2019.

At the time, the legislature was debating the government’s controversial extradition bill, which would have allowed criminal suspects in Hong Kong to be transferred for trial to mainland China and other jurisdictions the city lacks such an agreement with.

During the trial, campaigner Fu Chun-chung said he was hanging a banner at about 7.30am that day when a group of protesters including Chung scolded and swore at him, despite warnings from police and security guards.

Fu testified someone then snatched the regional and national flags from his group during the altercation, and that he saw Chung throwing the latter to the ground, breaking the flagpole in the process.

Chung’s arresting officer further testified to his admission, allegedly given under caution when he was arrested for criminal damage eight days later.

“It was a protest zone,” Chung was recorded as saying. “There should not be anything sticking out, so I pulled it out and threw it onto the ground.”

But Chung’s defence lawyer challenged the alleged admission at trial.

Chung stressed he did not know he was holding a national flag when someone passed him a piece of red cloth attached to a broken stick when he approached Fu’s group after seeing some 10 members pulling a woman’s backpack.

The court heard the woman had used her backpack to hit and block a speaker belonging to the campaign, which prompted members to pull the bag away.

The student said he subsequently threw the cloth away, because someone had used the stick attached to attack his peers and he wanted to prevent further assaults with the broken object.

He also testified to not knowing the other people who had helped the woman, or that he was outside the designated protest area at the time, noting that neither police nor security staff had asked his group to leave.

The magistrate ruled that Chung’s admission was made voluntarily, knowing that it could be used against him. She repeatedly watched the footage of the incident in both regular and slow-motion modes, down to milliseconds, to conclude Chung had pulled the flag, ran off and threw it away.

Wong also found that Chung must have noticed it was the national flag, as early as when he first saw the woman with the backpack, since its bright colours and stars were clearly displayed from a distance.

But she pointed out that the woman had already retrieved her backpack by the time Chung arrived, and concluded that his subsequent behaviour was not about helping the woman, but to argue and engage in conflict.

Wong also rejected Chung’s explanation of trying to protect others from getting hurt by a dangerous, broken object.

“Had the defendant not broken the flag pole, such a risk would not have existed,” she added.