9 guilty of rioting in 2016 HK disturbance

Nine people were convicted of rioting during a disturbance in Hong Kong’s Mong Kok district on Lunar New Year’s eve in 2016 — an incident in which 130 people were injured, including 90 police officers.

All nine were taken into police custody.

Magistrate Kwok Wai-kin postponed sentencing until May 23 to allow time to get reports from the training center, detention center and local community service authorities.

There were 11 defendants altogether, from age 18 to 71. One fled to Taiwan and another pleaded guilty and was released on bail until sentencing. The remaining nine defendants, who pleaded not guilty, were convicted.

One of the defendants, Mo Jia-tao, was also convicted of one count of criminal damage to a police car.

There were about 70 witness for the prosecution in the case.

Under Hong Kong statutes, rioting carries a maximum sentence of 10 years imprisonment.

A police officer testified that he was attacked on the way to save injured colleagues and was left unconscious. One of his teeth was broken, and his right hand and leg were injured. A female police officer’s hand was fractured.

A chief inspector described how bricks thrown by protesters were “falling down like rain” in Mong Kok. He was hit in the back of his head by bricks and needed stitches to close the wound.

Prosecutors argued that the defendants assembled illegally, breached the peace by burning garbage bins and beat police officers.

The defendants’ lawyers argued that police actions caused the situation to deteriorate and provoked the defendants’ need for self-defense. Some of those found guilty claimed that they were there to watch the “peanut show”, not to participate.

However, Kwok concluded that the defendants collectively breached the peace and used violence. Prosecutors do not need to prove the protesters’ motivations or goals, Kwok said.

The Mong Kok riot involved hundreds of masked protesters, some of whom hurled bricks pried from the pavement and set fires in garbage bins in the early morning of Feb 9, 2016. Around 70 people were arrested in connection with the disturbances.