Hong Kong protests: teen gets up to 3 years at training centre for carrying firebombs, role in 2019 demonstration
- Lawyers for boy, who was 13 at the time of arrest, had pushed for a hard labour sentence that would have been capped at six months
- But Judge Frankie Yiu said the risk the improvised explosive devices had posed to commuters and teen’s active role at protest warranted a longer term
Passing sentence at the District Court on Friday, Judge Frankie Yiu Fun-che ruled that the longer term offered by a correctional institution was appropriate given the teen’s active role in an illegal gathering in Mong Kok and the risk the improvised flammable devices had posed to railway passengers.
“Without a doubt, the defendant was … an active participant on the front line of the unlawful assembly,” Yiu said. “Had the defendant used the firebombs inside the station, the consequences would have been unbearable.”
A defence lawyer for the boy, who cannot be identified due to his age, urged the court to consider sending him to hard labour at the Sha Tsui Correctional Institution on Lantau Island, where he could have been released in just six months, allowing the Form Three student to return to school.
But Yiu said such a short period of detention failed to reflect the gravity of the offences, which could have easily landed the juvenile offender in jail for more than two years had he been an adult.