4 former University of Hong Kong student leaders jailed for 2 years for praising knife attack on police officer in 2021
- Quartet pleaded guilty to inciting violence by passing resolution at student union council meeting in 2021 lauding ‘honourable sacrifice’ of man who stabbed constable
- Judge says Charles Kwok, Kinson Cheung, Chris Todorovski and Anthony Yung equally culpable despite different roles in council decision
Four former student leaders from the University of Hong Kong (HKU) were each jailed for two years on Monday for praising a knife attack on a police officer in 2021, with a judge calling their actions premeditated and an “open defiance of the law”.
The District Court sentenced the quartet after they earlier pleaded guilty to inciting violence. An initial charge of advocating terrorism, an offence under the Beijing-decreed national security law, was dropped as part of a deal with prosecutors.
The convicted four are: former student union president Charles Kwok Wing-ho, 22; ex-student union council chairman Kinson Cheung King-sang, 22; former residential hall representative Chris Todorovski Shing-hang, 21; and ex-arts association representative Anthony Yung Chung-hei, 21.
‘I can’t forgive him,’ says Hong Kong police officer injured in knife attack
The defendants admitted to passing a resolution at a student union council meeting in 2021 lauding the “honourable sacrifice” of 50-year-old Leung Kin-fai, who stabbed a constable before committing suicide a week earlier on the July 1 anniversary of the city’s return to Chinese rule.
Judge Adriana Noelle Tse Ching slammed the defendants for abusing their council positions to endorse extreme violence against police, despite the risk of reviving the social unrest that rocked Hong Kong in 2019.
“In committing the offence, not only did they pay absolutely no regard to the condition of the [injured] police officer, his family and the effect of the resolution on public law and order, they in fact glorified the violence,” Tse said.
She said that even a child would realise that honouring Leung’s “vicious and cold-blooded” attack on the officer would be “extremely wrong”, but the defendants still chose to pay tribute to him “in the most public and formal manner”.
“The defendants stated in the meeting that the incident was labelled as a lone-wolf terrorist attack, and they believed that all mourning activities were characterised as illegal,” she said. “Yet they decided to hold the meeting, pass the resolution and broadcast the proceedings. This was open defiance of the law.”
Tse said the case was more serious than an ordinary resident making provocative statements on social media, as the defendants, by passing the resolution, made it appear their stance represented all students at the prestigious institution.
The offence was aggravated by the fact that many young people who had taken part in the 2019 protests had regarded the four as role models, she said.
Monday’s 93-page ruling revealed Kwok had at one stage of the proceedings offered to plead guilty to the terrorism charge, only to withdraw that indication two weeks later in a move that was said to have “professionally embarrassed” his original legal team.
Cheung and Yung had respectively tried to convince the justice department to settle the case by a conditional discharge, with the former soliciting the help of HKU legal scholar Albert Chen Hung-yee to attempt to make the persuasion, but without success.
Defence counsel submitted the four were genuinely sorry, as reflected by their retraction of the motion and resolution concerned, open apology and resignations.
But Tse said their purported remorse was “very shallow” and of little mitigation value.
In particular, she criticised Cheung’s attempt to evade responsibility and blame other council members for the resolution.
In Kwok’s mitigation letter, he acknowledged he was influenced by public resentment against police during the 2019 social unrest and believed many people sympathised with Leung as they felt the knife attack was what officers deserved.
But Tse said Kwok was ignorant about the full circumstances of the protesters’ arrests and chose to only blame the force even in the face of jail time.
The court trimmed the four’s sentence from a starting point of 35 months in light of their guilty plea, relative youth and renunciation of the council’s decision.
Advocating terrorism and inciting others to wound with intent are both punishable by up to seven years’ jail at the District Court.
