Hong Kong judge who angered China packs for UK

A HONG KONG judge who provoked Beijing’s displeasure when he acquitted defendants accused of rioting during anti-government protests is set to leave the territory for the UK.

Sham Siu-man, 59, would be the first judge to do so since China imposed draconian legislation on Hong Kong last June, The Times reported. A district judge, he had been singled out by probeijing media after a ruling last October in which he cleared seven people of all charges over a protest and ordered a retrial for an eighth defendant.

The protesters were arrested in Wan Chai, a metropolitan district on the northern shore of Hong Kong Island. He ruled that their presence at the protests was insufficient to justify a conviction. “Undoubtedly, the situation of the night in question was not something that one would often see in Hong Kong,” he said.

“To some people, it was perhaps a rare and special historical moment. The court does not rule out the possibility that, among those present, there were indeed some who went there hoping to witness everything that was happening.”

He agreed with defence lawyers that the accused could have been fleeing the scene in response to a police warning, rather than trying to avoid arrest as participants in the riot.

More than 100 people were arrested during protests on Oct 1 2019.

Citing other legal professionals, Mr Sham’s ruling was described as “absurd” by Wen Wei Po, a pro-beijing newspaper. Sing Tao Daily, another pro-beijing newspaper, said that Mr Sham, who is married with two sons, had applied for early retirement.

In another case he cleared a Hong Kong student, who was accused of hurling bricks, of rioting. The judge dismissed the police account of the incident and accused officers of lying about how the defendant sustained a head injury during the arrest.

Mr Sham graduated from Keele University with a degree in law and economics before being called to the bar in the UK in 1989 and Hong Kong the following year.