Xinqi Su 蘇昕琪 Profile picture
Feb 9 12 tweets 4 min read
#JUSTIN Two HK young men in their early 20 were just now sentenced to 5 years in jail for “conspiracy to incite subversion” as members of the now disbanded activist group “Returning Valiants”. 5 other minor defendants in the same case were sentenced to training center last year.
The two young men are Choi Wing-kit, 21, and Chris Chan Yau-tsun, 26. Choi was also sentenced to 6 months in jail for "possession of offensive weapon" in a separate burglary case, among which 3 months will be running concurrently with the 5-year sentence.
The police operation between May and Sep 2021 against #ReturningValiant was the second largest group arrest under #NSL by far, following the mass round-up of 55 pro-dem politicians on 6 Jan 2021 over the allegedly subversive pro-dem camp primary election (currently in trial).
A total of 22 people were arrested between the five months, including 15 secondary school students. This also made the operate one with the largest number of under-aged persons. Among the 22 arrestees, 13 (11 students) were charged with #NSL in 2 separate cases.
The current case has 7 defendants and all pleaded guilty to the charge that can lead to 10 years in jail. Sentence for Choi and Chan was adjourned from last year to wait for the Court of Appeal to decide on questions like min sentence in #NSL trial over the Lui Sai-yu case.
Following CA's decision in "Lui Sai-yu", District Court #NSL judge Kwok Wai-kin today gave Choi and Chan each 6 months of deduction for their guilty plea.

In non national security cases, a guilty plea can normally earn an accused up to 1/3 discount.
The starting point of sentence for Choi was moved down from 6 years to 5.5 years because he was aged under 21 in the case material time. After another 6 month discount over guilty plea, Choi got 5 years over the #NSL charge.
The starting point for Chan was set at 5.5 years and he eventually received 5 years after the 6-month guilty plea discount.

Judge Kwok found the overall case and the pair's individual cases to be of "serious nature" so the minimum sentence shall apply.
The overall case was found to be "serious" because the group "advocated for bloody resistant without bottom line" and "encouraged like-minded others to carry out preparations for armed revolution". Kwok said such ideas "are absolutely not allowed to emerge".
Choi's individual case was found to be "serious" because he was the group founder and Kwok said "the only inference beyond reasonable doubt is that the idea of bloody revolution without bottom line came from him".
Chan's individual case was also found to be "serious" because for once he provided English interpretation for the group's press conference. Kwok said "it's rather clear that he was trying to promote their ideas to international members".
The other, and more serious case stemmed from the #ReturningValiant involves six students who are charged of "conspiracy to commit terrorist act", and the alternative charge of "conspiracy to cause explosion", which carries up to life sentence. Plea and sentence scheduled in May.

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More from @XinqiSu

Feb 8
#Thread
Who are in the curious long queue outside the West Kowloon Court trying to take up public seats for the largest #NSL trial with 47 pro-dem politicians and activists charged of "conspiracy to commit subversion" ?

Pro-Beijing Ta Kung Pao had some serious thoughts.
In its signature column today, Ta Kung Pao ran a piece entitled "Resolutely stop the ill trend of 'court attending masters' troubling courts" accusing public members who attended trials in relation to the 2019 protests "fellows of the black-clad riots". But ... Image
...the opening example of this commentary is "As the Primary Election case opened trial in the West Kowloon Magistrates' Courts, there are large number of people queuing for a seats in the trial's public gallery every early morning - some even stood in line overnight". Image
Read 10 tweets
Feb 5
#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.
Read 21 tweets
Feb 3
#thread
What's happening in HK on Monday? Border fully reopened, and the largest by-far #NSL trial kicking off after 2 yrs of pre-trial proceeding - when 34 / 47 defendants were kept behind bars, 31 / 47 chose to plead guilty, and at least 3 turned into prosecution witnesses.
In this advancer w/ @JeromeTaylor we reviewed what this case is about, who are among those being charged, what are the key legal disputes, and how analysts observe / understand the trial.

sg.news.yahoo.com/hong-kongs-lar…
HK's former legal sector lawmaker @denniswhkwok told @AFP the trial is "a complete farce" : "Subversion...doesn't include people who simply run for office and pledge to use their public office to force the government to respond to the demands of the people they represent."
Read 7 tweets
Jan 16
#NOW HK Chief Justice Andrew Cheung is delivering his speech for ceremonial opening of the legal year 2023. His speech will devote to “role of the judiciary” - “an inaccurate, incomplete or misconceived understanding of the role of the Judiciary is often the reason…
…an inaccurate, incomplete or misconceived understanding of the role of the Judiciary is often the reason for misplaced or inappropriate criticisms of court decisions, or even personal attacks against our judges,” Cheung said.
“It is …entirely proper for someone, if there are good grounds, to criticise the court or a judge for misapplying the law. It is, however, wrong to criticise a judge simply for applying laws which one does not like or agree with…laws are not enacted by judges”
Read 13 tweets
Jan 12
#CONTINUE Chung Pui-kuen is on the witness stand for the 3rd day. Today defense counsel Audrey Eu began to ask Chung questions about how the prosecution described what happened in Hong Kong in 2019 and after #NSL came in force and the 17 "seditious" articles.
For background this is an old thread about the prosecution's case against #StandNews and what "judicial notice" they wanted the court to take in order to determine the nature of the offence:
The prosecution cited the opening paragraph describing HK's situation since the protests in 2019 in a resolution by the NPCSC on May 28, 2020 to enact an #NSL for Hong Kong. The paragraph said since the #antiELAB protests in 2019, "anti-China destabilising forces in Hong Kong"...
Read 38 tweets
Jan 11
#CONTINUE #StandNews founding chief editor Chung Pui-kuen began this morning his second day on witness stand. The first QA session with his defense counsel lasted 1.5 hours and ended when Chung choked in tears as he spoked about the last day of #AppleDaily in June 2021.
* Chung told the court that after #NSL came in force, he decided to stop publishing any commentary that advocated for independence and separation of any part of China, however, he did not set such a red line for #StandNews reporting.
* "If a political figure with public attention indeed raised such a proposition, we believed we should still let our readers know instead of filtering it out, otherwise, some readers might believe that person was rather moderate and trust-worthy."
Read 26 tweets

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