Hong Kong jails 12 for storming legislature in 2019

Defendants jailed for terms between four and seven years after being found guilty of rioting after forcing their way into the chamber.

A Hong Kong court has sentenced 12 people to jail terms ranging from more than four years to nearly seven years after they stormed the city’s legislature during the 2019 pro-democracy protests.

Hundreds of protesters broke into the Legislative Council building on July 1 that year, daubing graffiti in the chamber and defacing a government emblem amid rising public anger over a proposed extradition bill that many feared would allow authorities to send people to mainland China for trial.

On Saturday District Court Judge Li Chi-ho sentenced the defendants including actor Gregory Wong after they were previously found guilty of rioting. Wong, who is 45, was jailed for six years and two months after pleading not guilty.

Political activists Ventus Lau and Owen Chow, who had pleaded guilty, were given terms of 54 months and 20 days, and 61 months and 15 days, respectively.

Althea Suen, the 27-year-old former president of the University of Hong Kong’s student union, who had also pleaded guilty, was sentenced to four years and nine months.