The prosecution is asking a court to review its sentencing in a case where two defendants were fined HK$3000 for pelting eggs at Scholarism convenor and Occupy activist Joshua Wong Chi-fung.
The prosecution said the court had failed to take into account that the crime was premeditated and argued that “a person will not bring eggs with them for no good reason”. The court also heard that the defendants were seeking to carry out “extrajudicial punishment”.
The prosecution asked the court to consider imprisonment, but said it would understand if a lighter sentence or community service was imposed. It also referred to the judgment in the case of Derek Chan Tak-cheung, in which the League of Social Democrats member was sentenced to jail for hitting Financial Secretary John Tsang Chun-wah with an egg, Sing Tao reported.
The magistrate Eric Cheung Kwan-ming admitted that the sentence did not consider the aggravating factor of premeditation, and said the two defendants had hid outside the law courts buildings, ready to hit Wong with eggs.
The magistrate accepted the prosecution’s application to review the sentence and adjourned the case to October 27. The defendants will be released on bail in the meantime.
Last November, Wong was pelted with eggs outside the Kowloon City Magistrates’ Court by 27-year-old dim sum chef Li Wong and 33-year-old transportation worker Cheung Ka-shing. The two defendants were said to have committed the crime because their income had been affected by the pro-democracy Occupy movement last year. The two were charged with common assault and fined $3000, a sentence that was then criticised by Wong.
“Can a HK$3,000 fine reflect how serious this was? People can come to their own conclusions,” Wong said on his Facebook page.
