Thread by @XinqiSu

#NOW a curious long queue is extending outside the West Kowloon Court for the #NSL trial with 47 democrats charged of “conspiracy to commit subversion”. Many of them queued overnight and refused to talk to reporters. Some said they don’t know what the case is about.

A woman at the head of the queue said she wanted to see whether there would be a fair verdict and appeared to have no idea it’s the beginning of the trial. “They indeed committed a crime so I want to see whether the court would give them fair punishment.”

Three men down the line told me they had no idea what the case is about. One said he came as his wife ordered (at that moment a woman behind him asked him to stop talking to reporters), and another one said he came because he watched a movie about a trial recently.

Three elderly women in the queue seemed lost when asked why they are here. They said they didn’t know the queue is for seats at a trial and they are not sure whether they should stay. One said a friend told her to come and the other said she jumped in when she walked past.

Diplomats from 11 countries and EU arrived around 9am and found hundreds of people queuing in front of them. The city prepares 406 seats for members of the public but only 39 are inside the actual courtroom of the trial. The rest will be in other courtrooms and the jury’s room.

#NOW inside the courtroom, only 18 of the 39 seats for the public have been taken up, mostly by middle-aged and senior ppl. A court staff told one of the women photo is not allowed and reminded others to turn off phones after another public member called out an attempted selfie.

Court is ready to open. Most of the public seats have been taken. 24 defendants appear in court including the 16 who pleaded not guilty and 8 pleaded guilty.

Court is now taking a 45 min break after an hour long session when formal plea was taken from the 16 defendants who PNG and the 2 defendants who changed their plea to guilty after committal.

Ng Kin-wai, one of the pair who changed plea, said: "I tried to subvert a totalitarian regime but haven't succeeded. I plead guilty to the charge."

"Long Hair" Leung Kwok-hung: "There is no crime to plead. Universal suffrage is not a crime. Resisting tyranny is not a crime."

Gwyneth Ho @KwaiLamHo said she just received the latest version of the prosecution opening this morning and notice the line "threat of force" had been deleted. She said the charge that was read out in court still had the line and asked which charge was she asked to plead to.

The leading judge Andrew Chan appeared to be annoyed by the defendants' statements. After Leung Kwok-hung's statement, Chan said the hearing was a "solemn occasion" and he had been paying respect to every defendant, "so I ask for the same respect from you".

In response to Gwyneth Ho, another #NSL judge Alex Lee said it should be her lawyer instead of herself talking in court since she is represented. When Ho tried to raise the issue again, judge Andrew Chan simply asked her lawyer whether he needed time to explain to his client.

It may take a while before the prosecution can really start to read their opening as the leading prosecutor DDPP Jonathan Man told the court that the prosecution wanted to introduce a 4th expert witness but failed to comply with requirement of filing notices to the court.

DDPP Man explained two reasons: one that he thought the defendants would agree with the 4th expert witness's statements and the other that he overlooked due the workload of the case. The 4th expert witness, according to Man, is to explain the functions of Facebook and Youtube.

#JUSTIN Leading prosecutor DDPP Jonathan Man told the court that 4 defendants would be giving evidence as prosecution witnesses , including D2, 3, 4, and 42 ie Au Nok-hin, Andrew Chiu, Ben Chung, and Mike Lam.

Today's hearing is about to resume around 2.30pm. The prosecution will start reading out their opening of case, which is set to take 2 to 3 days as they estimated. Next Monday the prosecution will start calling witnesses, beginning with the 4 flipped defendants.

Intriguingly, when one of the defense counsels asked for more time to prepare for his cross examination of D2 Au Nok-hin as a prosecution witness, the leading judge Andrew Chan said, "You may not have a lot of things to cross examine" while rejecting the application.

#OpeningOfCase Prosecution: "The essential terms of the Conspiracy are that the defendants agreed to seriously interfere in, disrupt or undermine the performance of duties and functions in accordance with the law by the body of power of HKSAR. That is, ...

...the defendants agreed to indiscriminately veto any Budgets or public expenditure to be introduced by the Government, compel the Chief Executive to dissolve the LegCo and/or cause the Chief Executive to resign...

...The purpose of the Conspiracy was to subvert the State power. The means employed involved the unlawful means other than force or threat of force."

Today's hearing ended shortly before 4pm when the prosecution finished reading out 22 paragraphs of their opening and reached mid-April 2020. Five primary coordination meetings and 8 articles/posts by Benny Tai were mentioned. Tai is allegedly the "initiator of the Scheme".