Inquest into death of protester ‘raincoat man’ begins in Hong Kong, but his family can no longer be located
- Marco Leung was wearing a yellow raincoat when he fell from scaffolding at Pacific Place in Admiralty in June 2019 after hanging a protest banner
- Lawyers hired by his family members say they are no longer in contact with them and neither have the relatives identified themselves to the Coroner’s Court
The court began proceedings on Monday to examine the cause and circumstances of the death of Marco Leung Ling-kit, also known as “raincoat man” for the yellow garment he was wearing when he climbed the temporary working platform at Pacific Place in Admiralty on June 15 that year to hang a protest banner.
In a handwritten scrawl, it demanded the withdrawal of an extradition bill and the unconditional release of arrested protesters. It also called on the government to no longer characterise a watershed protest days earlier on June 12 as a riot. Leung, a 35-year-old former transport worker, died after falling 17 metres.
His death came a day before a rally on Hong Kong Island that organisers estimated was attended by as many as 2 million people, which would make it the largest demonstration since the city’s handover from Britain to China in 1997. Leung’s demands would go on to become part of the five that protesters rallied around for months following.
Leung’s parents initially hired lawyers to act on their behalf during the inquest, but the legal representatives applied to withdraw from the case at a pretrial hearing in February as they had lost contact with the clients.