Hong Kong protests: student faces up to 7 years’ jail for rioting, after serving time in mainland China over trying to flee to Taiwan
- Engineering student Kok Tsz-lun, 20, pleads guilty in exchange for prosecution dropping two other charges in relation to protest near Polytechnic University in 2019
- Vocational school student Lam Man-nok, 21, also pleads guilty to riot charge
A university student who was jailed in mainland China for illegally crossing the border alongside 11 fugitives faces up to seven years’ imprisonment in Hong Kong after pleading guilty to rioting at the height of the city’s social unrest in 2019.
Engineering student Kok Tsz-lun, 20, was facing charges stemming from a violent protest near Polytechnic University in November 2019 when he attempted to flee to Taiwan with 11 others in August 2020.
The 12 Hongkongers were scooped up by a coastguard vessel in Chinese waters and detained in neighbouring Shenzhen, with their families complaining they could neither make contact nor help them secure the lawyers of their choice.
Kok was jailed for seven months at a Shenzhen court following a trial behind closed doors. He was escorted back to Hong Kong in March last year and remanded in custody ahead of the riot trial.
On Tuesday, Kok pleaded guilty to rioting before a deputy district judge at West Kowloon Court in exchange for prosecutors dropping two other charges relating to possession of offensive weapons and illegal instruments. Another vocational school student, 21-year-old Lam Man-nok, also pleaded guilty to the riot charge.
The court heard Kok was then 18 and a first-year student at the University of Hong Kong when he joined a violent protest near Yau Ma Tei MTR station, about 1.5km away from Polytechnic University, on the night of November 18, 2019.
Protesters had turned the Hung Hom campus into their stronghold, taking on riot police while reinforcing their defences. Their comrades attempted to give them a window to escape by staging various protests in the university’s vicinity.