Hong Kong man jailed for 7 years for rioting after acquittal overturned

A Hong Kong transport worker has been jailed for seven years for rioting with a white-clad mob at a railway station during the 2019 anti-government protests after his acquittal was overturned upon prosecutors’ appeal.

The District Court on Tuesday sentenced Wong Chi-wing, 60, for his role in what the presiding judge called the “indiscriminate provocation, intimidation and assault” of residents at Yuen Long MTR station on the night of July 21, 2019.

The Yuen Long resident was captured on CCTV footage targeting random commuters, including those believed to have returned from a mass protest on Hong Kong Island earlier in the day, swearing and hurling hard objects at his victims.

District Judge Eddie Yip Chor-man initially cleared Wong of rioting and wounding with intent by citing a risk of misidentifying the culprit.

The judge reversed the defendant’s acquittal last week after the Court of Appeal found the conclusion was “perverse” and made without full consideration of incriminating circumstantial evidence.

The court heard Wong was diagnosed with panic disorder in 2012 and required regular psychiatric follow-up to this day.