Hong Kong 47: Benny Tai jailed for 10 years over plot to overthrow government
‘Clear message’ sent over seriousness of offences, minister Chris Tang says, as government considers appeal to push for longer jail terms
Former legal academic Benny Tai Yiu-ting has been jailed for 10 years for conspiring to subvert state power after he initiated an unofficial legislative “primary” election in the hope of bringing down the Hong Kong government four years ago.
The 60-year-old former University of Hong Kong professor was among 45 opposition politicians and activists sentenced at West Kowloon Court on Tuesday out of a group of 47 prosecuted in a landmark national security case over the unofficial election in July 2020.
The other 44 defendants, most of whom were primary election candidates, were jailed for between four years and two months and seven years and nine months. The case against two of the 47 was earlier dismissed.
Thirty-two of the defendants have already spent more than three years in jail. As such, those with the lightest sentences could be released in six months. But Tai, who received the heaviest sentence, might need to spend another eight years behind bars.
The three presiding High Court judges adopted a starting point of 15 years’ imprisonment for Tai after considering him to be a “principal offender” of the subversion plot, which sought to create a “constitutional crisis” after taking over the legislature.
They sentenced him to 10 years in jail after knocking off one-third for his timely guilty plea.
