An activist who was given a three-week jail sentence for throwing a tuna sandwich at the then-leader of Hong Kong has had his conviction and jail term quashed by a Hong Kong court.
Avery Ng was handed the jail term in October 2017 after a court found him guilty of common assault, but he was granted bail to lodge an appeal against the conviction.
The incident took place during the Legislative Council elections in September of 2016, when Ng chucked the tuna sandwich at then-Chief Executive CY Leung as he entered a polling station to cast his vote. The sandwich missed Leung, who managed to duck in time, instead hitting the hand of police Chief Inspector Lau Wing-kwan, who described the sandwich as “wet and soft.”
Ng, a member of the League of Social Democrats (LSD), was one of the protesters at the polling booth calling on the government to introduce a universal pension scheme. The launched lunch item was meant as a reference to the plight of the city’s elderly poor, many of whom couldn’t afford a similar snack.
In his remarks at the High Court today, Justice Joseph Yau pointed to news footage shown in the courtroom that showed Lau looking relaxed as the sandwich hit the back of his hand, noting that the police official seemed totally unperturbed by the alleged assault, RTHK reports.
Yau also noted that since Ng had actually intended to assault Leung, he should not have been convicted of assaulting Lau unless prosecutors could prove that he had transferred that intent onto the police official.
Going on to shape sandwich-throwing case law even further, Yau added that it was unclear whether the sandwich would have made contact at all had the officer not deliberately extended his arm to block it.
In his judgement, Yau concluded that the common assault conviction was “unsafe,” and that he was “puzzled” by the authorities’ decision to charge Ng with assaulting Lau instead of Leung, questioning whether they had sought to avoid putting Leung on the stand.
Speaking to reporters outside the courtroom, Ng admitted that he was surprised by the ruling.
“Common assault, in terms of an appeal, is quite difficult to succeed. But obviously the judge made a very good observation in questioning the reason why the DOJ chose to prosecute me for common assault against the police officer, rather than the chief executive,” he said.
“This was just another example of the DOJ using its power to prosecute political opponents.”
Reader Interactions