National security law: Hong Kong woman stands trial accused of targeting police by dropping metal post from height at Times Square shopping centre
- Yeung Ying-hei, 36, allegedly stole stanchion from a retractable belt barrier in Causeway Bay’s Times Square and threw it from third to second floor
- She denies attempted wounding with intent, dropping an object from a building, theft and criminal damage at District Court trial
An advertising copywriter accused of dropping a metal post from height during a shopping centre protest against Hong Kong’s national security law has denied trying to injure two police officers who were making arrests below.
Yeung Ying-hei stole the stanchion from a retractable belt barrier at a cake shop in Causeway Bay’s Times Square and hurled it from the third to second floor in an attempt to incapacitate the officers, a court heard on Monday.
The 36-year-old is accused of mounting the attack on July 1, 2020, the anniversary of Hong Kong’s return to Chinese sovereignty and the day after the Beijing-imposed national security law took effect.
Opening the trial at the District Court on Monday, prosecutor Simon Kwong Cho-yan said the falling stanchion broke a digital signboard on the shopping centre’s second floor, costing the mall operator HK$4,700 to repair.
The officers, identified in court as chief inspector 7627 and sergeant 52708, were not injured in the incident.
Yeung pleaded not guilty to four charges – attempted wounding with intent, dropping an object from a building, theft and criminal damage. She faces up to seven years in prison if convicted.
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China’s Rebel City: The Hong Kong Protests
Thousands of protesters defied the ban to express their discontent with the newly enacted security law, which bans acts of secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces. Some of them blocked roads, set fires, vandalised shops and attacked police.
The court heard that riot police had arrested a group of suspects during an illegal assembly on the shopping centre’s ground floor, before receiving reports of falling objects from the building’s second floor at about 7.30pm.
Soon after a team of police officers approached the upper level to investigate, the retractable belt barrier stanchion fell from the building’s third floor, almost hitting the chief inspector and sergeant.
Security camera footage shows a woman, whom the prosecution alleges to be the defendant, walking back and forth in front of a patisserie before picking up the metal post and dropping it onto the lower floor.
The trial before District Judge Stanley Chan Kwong-chi is expected to last five days.
