Hong Kong protests: PolyU student gets 13 months’ jail for possession of weapons outside police station
- Polytechnic University undergraduate Ng Chun-wai, 24, was found with a hammer, can of lighter fluid and glass bottle clogged with a piece of cloth inside police station in Mong Kok
- Magistrate Winnie Lau dismisses defendant’s claim he had been ‘tortured’ and framed by police, says he kept the items ‘with intent to injure people’
A university student has been given 13 months behind bars for possession of weapons outside a police station during the 2019 Hong Kong protests, after a magistrate dismissed the defendant’s assertion he had been “tortured” and framed by officers.
Polytechnic University undergraduate Ng Chun-wai was arrested at a junction next to Mong Kok Police Station on September 21 two years ago, when some 30 black-clad protesters attempted to occupy parts of Nathan Road and paint graffiti on the walls of the police premises.
The 24-year-old was found to be carrying a hammer, a can of lighter fluid and a glass bottle clogged with a piece of cloth after he was taken inside the station, Eastern Court heard.
Douglas Kwok King-hin, Ng’s counsel, contended that officers had planted the prohibited items inside his client’s rucksack after hitting him in the left eye with a baton.
Kwok also said officers had used excessive force when apprehending his client and performing a body check on Ng while he was naked, leaving him traumatised.
In her verdict earlier this month, Magistrate Winnie Lau Yee-wan found Ng a dishonest witness and held that the purported ordeal did not happen.
She noted that Ng did not sustain any serious injuries, and he did not immediately complain to his lawyers about the treatment he claimed he had endured inside the station.