Source:
https://scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-crime/article/2124950/storming-legco-meeting-ousted-lawmakers-resulted-one-guard
Hong Kong/ Law and Crime

Storming of Legco meeting by ousted lawmakers resulted in one guard collapsing and several injured, court hears

Yau Wai-ching allegedly kicked and kneed a security guard in the leg while Sixtus Baggio Leung Chung-hang tried to jump over guards

Disqualified lawmakers Sixtus Baggio Leung Chung-hang (Left) and Yau Wai-ching are on trial for unlawful assembly. Photo: Xiaomei Chen

A female security guard collapsed and a few more were injured when two ousted pro-independence lawmakers and their three assistants stormed a meeting in the city’s legislature last November, Hong Kong prosecutors said on Tuesday.

Yau Wai-ching allegedly kicked and kneed a security guard in the leg while Sixtus Baggio Leung Chung-hang tried to jump over the guards multiple times to grab hold of the door to a room at the Legislative Council on November 2, 2016.

Prosecutors added that the five individuals, including the assistants – Yeung Lai-hong, Chung Suet-ying and Cheung Tsz-lung – used their bodies to push past the guards to enter a conference room, with some among the group hurling verbal abuse.

On Tuesday, the second day of the group’s trial for unlawful assembly, the Kowloon City Court was told of the sequence of events that led to the chaos.

Yau and Leung were banned from taking part in the meeting on November 2 last year after they displayed anti-China antics during the Legco swearing-in ceremony for lawmakers elected earlier in September.

They attempted to retake their oaths on the day but Legco president Andrew Leung Kwan-yuen rejected their request.

When council members gathered in the Legco chamber, Sixtus Baggio Leung and Yau entered the chamber around 11am, despite signs at the door warning them not do so.

Footage by news media played in court showed former lawmaker Lau Siu-lai – who was this year disqualified from Legco over improper oath-taking – then taking her oath. Yau and Sixtus Baggio Leung then strode to the front of the chamber, with Yau speaking into what appeared to be a microphone that she had brought along.

At the president’s request, security guards tried to escort the pair away, only to be blocked by pan-democrat lawmakers Claudia Mo and Raymond Chan Chi-chuen, and now-disqualified legislator “Long Hair” Leung Kwok-hung. Other pan-democrats also subsequently offered their help.

Andrew Leung then adjourned the meeting in the chamber and said it would resume in the conference room.

Chaos ensued when the meeting in the conference room began at 12.55pm. The five defendants were joined by 10 others, with the defendants then trying to break through a cordon line set by security guards.

Sixtus Baggio Leung, Yeung, and Cheung chanted “one, two, one, two” when they attempted to enter the room, prosecutors said.

“Hit me!” Sixtus Baggio Leung allegedly yelled.

He, Chung, and Cheung then hurled verbal insults at the guards, with the two assistants helping him as he tried repeatedly to jump and grab hold of the door.

Kwan Yiu-kee, then an acting security officer at Legco, testified on Tuesday that all five defendants eventually stopped scuffling. Yau and Sixtus Baggio Leung told the media last year after the incident that they did not want to injure the guards.

But Kwan also recalled that after the fracas subsided, “all the injured [guards] were lying on the ground”.

Lawmaker Kwok Ka-ki, a doctor by profession, then tended to them.

The five defendants earlier this year denied one count of taking part in an unlawful assembly. They also pleaded not guilty to an alternative charge of attempted forcible entry.

But prosecutors maintained that they had flouted the law and “conducted themselves in a disorderly, intimidating, insulting or provocative manner” that might cause people to fear peace had been breached.

The case continues before Magistrate Wong Sze-lai on Wednesday.

Sixtus Baggio Leung and Yau were disqualified from Legco last November, and lost their final bid to appeal at the Court of Final Appeal this past August.