Top Court Throws Out Sandwich-attack Appeal

Hong Kong's top court on Friday decided against hearing a government appeal against activist Avery Ng, affirming a lower court’s earlier decision to overturn his assault conviction for throwing a sandwich at the then-Chief Executive CY Leung in 2016.

Ng had originally been sentenced to a three-week prison term for assaulting a police officer – who had blocked the flying sandwich with his arm – but the conviction was overturned on appeal.

Prosecutors tried to take the matter to the Court of Final Appeal, but judges there refused to allow it after hearing hearing their arguments.

In dismissing the leave to appeal, Chief Justice Geoffrey Ma said the case involved a "frivolous" attack, and the court will give its full reasons for the rejection later.

Ng said outside the court that he's glad he won the case. But he criticised the government for spending years, and millions of dollars of public public money to pursue what he described as a ‘simple’ case without much legal merit.

Ng said this is an example of the government abusing the judicial process to try to “suppress protests".