'Biased Chopper Attack Sentence Must Be Reviewed'

Pro-democracy legislator Lam Cheuk-ting on Sunday urged the chief prosecutor to apply for a review of a ‘lenient’ 45-month prison sentence imposed on a tour guide who injured three people in a chopper attack at a ‘Lennon Wall’ last August, warning that the judge’s ‘biased' and 'partial’ comments could encourage more violence against protesters.

District court judge Kwok Wai-kin had on Friday said the attacker, Tony Hung, was himself a ‘victim’ of months of unrest, saying it was no wonder that the 50-year-old didn’t agree with the views of his victims, as anti-government protesters had stamped on and “destroyed” his right to work as a tour guide and make a living.

The judge also extolled Hung for displaying “noble qualities” for expressing remorse and turning himself in to the authorities, after initially fleeing to the mainland following the attack.

As a result of his apparent contrition and his guilty plea, Kwok decided to sentence Hung to 45 months, down from a starting point of 60 months in prison.

In a letter asking the Director of Public Prosecutions to apply for the sentence to be reviewed, Lam expressed alarm at the judge’s comments, saying he had expressed his personal views on the protests at length in his judgement, giving rise to suspicions that his opinions may have been a factor in sentencing.

The Democratic Party legislator said the judge had ‘erred’ in giving an ‘overly-lenient’ sentence, and had sent a ‘wrong’ message to society at the same time.

Lam said rather than have any sort of a deterrent effect against other similar attacks in future, the judgement may have given the general public the impression that attacks on social activists are ‘understandable’ – if the assailants had come under financial difficulty as a result of the months of social unrest.

He said the chief prosecutor should therefore ask the courts to review the sentence, and “correct such a wrong and biased" ruling.

Civic Party chairman Alan Leong, meanwhile, tweeted that the judge had inarguably “fallen foul of the Guide to Judicial Conduct.”

“The bias and emotions underpinning such an unprofessional outburst might be shared by quite a few others in law enforcement agencies in #HK”, Leong said.