Hong Kong: A court in Hong Kong has sentenced a man to 14 and a half years in prison for attacking a group of people with a knife and biting off a district councillor’s ear during the 2019 Hong Kong protests, local media reported on Tuesday.
This is the most severe sentence related to the 2019 riots to date, the RTHK broadcaster said. The incident itself reportedly took place on November 3, 2019 near the Cityplaza shopping center and was caused by a dispute over politics.
The lawyer of the 52-year-old convict attempted to find mitigating circumstances during the hearing, the broadcaster said.
According to lawyer, the defendant is an apolitical person and did not take part in the protests. The wife of the convict, in turn, wrote a letter to the court saying that he had never harmed her or anyone else, even under the influence of alcohol.
However, a judge referred to a psychiatric report according to which the convict had put a knife to his wife's neck in the past, indicating he had violent tendencies, the broadcaster said.
The judge called the convict's actions "barbaric and unbelievable" and stressed that the victim is forced to wear an artificial ear, facing inconvenience in his everyday life, the RTHK said.
The first protests over the controversial extradition bill took place in Hong Kong in June 2019. After large-scale riots, the Hong Kong authorities decided to make concessions and withdraw the bill in early October 2019; however, the protests did not stop.
For six months, over 900 demonstrations, marches, and protests took place in the special administrative region of China.
More than 9,200 people were arrested. The Chinese authorities passed the Hong Kong national security law to prevent further unrest.
The law prescribed criminal penalties for activities linked to secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign countries or organizations.
The ban went into effect on June 30, 2020. (UNI)
