A Hong Kong court sentenced four men to terms of up to 37 months for their roles in clashes at Polytechnic University in Hung Hom during the 2019 protests. The District Court handed down the sentences on Monday, with reductions applied for guilty pleas and the delay since the offences.
Judge Edmond Lee Chun-man imposed starting sentences of 54 to 57 months for the joint rioting charge. He reduced each term by 17 to 25 months to account for the defendants’ guilty pleas and the six-and-a-half-year gap between the November 2019 offences and sentencing. One defendant, former tutor Chan Yuen-ming, 33, received a 37-month term. The court ordered it to run consecutively with his existing 18-and-a-half-year sentence for an unrelated drug trafficking case, bringing his total to 21 years and seven months. Chan’s lawyers cited a relapse of post-traumatic stress disorder linked to his 2022 detention in Myanmar. The judge declined further reduction after a government psychologist found no significant psychological distress and noted that Chan had adapted to prison life.
