Hong Kong protests: inquest jury unable to decide on cause of student’s death in car park after first day of deliberations
- Ruling the death accidental allowed if conclusion thought relatively likely based on the evidence, coroner tells five-member panel
- The 22-year-old student’s death had inflamed tensions between protesters and police at height of anti-government movement
An inquest jury was unable to decide on the cause of a Hong Kong student’s fatal fall inside a car park near the site of a protest two years ago on the first day of deliberations.
The five-member panel moved behind closed doors on Friday following a five-week inquest into the death of Alex Chow Tsz-lok, but failed to arrive at a verdict after more than six hours of discussions. They told Coroner Ko Wai-hung they required no help from the court as of yet, but were still making findings on the facts of the case.
The jury at the West Kowloon Law Courts Building in Cheung Sha Wan will spend Friday night at the High Court in Admiralty, equipped with basic amenities for jurors, before resuming deliberations on Saturday.
Earlier in the day, Ko asked the jurors to decide whether the death of the 22-year-old was homicide, but he stressed that concluding Chow was unlawfully killed came with high hurdles, as they had to be satisfied there was no other way to explain his fall in November 2019.
The jury could, however, rule Chow plunged four metres to his death inside the multistorey complex by accident, Ko said, if they found it was relatively likely based on the evidence submitted at the inquest at the Coroner’s Court.
