HK officers guilty of beating up protester
Print Edition
SEVEN Hong Kong police officers have been found guilty of beating up a handcuffed protester, a rare incident of police brutality in the financial hub.
Student-led protests paralyzed parts of the city over a 79-day period in 2014.
The trial focused on an incident on October 15.
A group of officers was filmed dragging the protester, Ken Tsang, to a dark corner by a pumping substation next to the protest site, where he was kicked and punched. The officers were later suspended from duty.
In a written summary, district court judge David Dufton said all seven officers were “guilty of assault occasioning actual bodily harm” but not guilty of the more serious charge of causing grievous bodily harm.
“The court was satisfied that by carrying Tsang to the substation where he was dumped on the ground and immediately assaulted, the only inference to draw was that Tsang was carried ... to be assaulted,” Dufton wrote in the summary of the verdict.
Tsang, a social worker, suffered face, neck and shoulder injuries. He was handcuffed with plastic zip ties at the time, though the court heard he had earlier thrown some liquid at police.
Two senior officers among the seven convicted had not taken part in the assault directly, Dufton said, but should have been duty-bound “to prevent the commission of a crime, even by fellow police officers.” Instead they had encouraged the others to carry out “unlawful personal violence” on Tsang, he added.
The seven men, who had pleaded not guilty, appeared in suits and ties and showed no emotion when the verdict was read.
Outside the court, Tsang’s supporters were heckled by a group of about 70 people who chanted: “Support our police.”
The court did not give a date for sentencing. Under Hong Kong law, they could be jailed for up to three years.
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