A Hong Kong businessman has been sentenced to four years and one month in prison for taking part in a riot with a stick-wielding white-clad mob outside a railway station during the 2019 anti-government protests.
West Kowloon Court on Monday jailed Tang Ka-man, 46, for participating in the assault against protesters and commuters during the overnight violence at Yuen Long MTR station between July 21 and 22, 2019.
Tang, a Yuen Long villager who runs a car park business, was earlier found guilty of rioting and conspiracy to wound with intent for brandishing a rattan stick to threaten a group of black-clad protesters gathering outside Ying Lung Wai village in the early hours of July 22.
He also hurled a wooden stick and a lamp he stole from a construction site at the opposition group, but missed his targets.
Deputy district judge Amy Chan Wai-mun sought to draw distinctions between the present case and other violent episodes of the social unrest, saying there was no evidence that anybody was injured during the clashes in Yuen Long, nor was any public facility vandalised.
“So this case was not one which involved the digging of the bricks, the attack of the police, arsons on the shops, on the MTR, the damage on the traffic lights, throwing of the petrol bombs,” she told the court.