Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying tells court of ‘shock’ when glass was hurled at him
Chief executive says he feared injury during incident in Legislative Council chamber, as radical lawmaker Wong Yuk-man goes on trial accused of assault
Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying told a court on Tuesday of how he feared injury when a radical lawmaker allegedly assaulted him in the Legislative Council, at the start of a landmark trial that has again dragged Hong Kong’s political woes into the international spotlight.
While his supporters and opponents held chaotic counter-protests outside Eastern Court, Leung became the city’s first sitting chief executive to testify in a criminal trial as he told the court of his shock when Wong Yuk-man allegedly threw a glass at him in the Legco chamber in 2014.
Hong Kong court first: city’s leader Leung Chun-ying to testify in glass-throwing trial
Leung, 61 – grim-faced at first but relaxing a bit later and managing an occasional smile – told the court that although government officials were no strangers to disruptions caused by lawmakers, what happened on July 3, 2014, during a Legco question-and-answer session was different.
“This time it was a glass that was thrown,” he said. “It was an assault.”
Wong, 64, formerly of the anti-Beijing League of Social Democrats, denied one count of common assault against the city’s leader.
The two have sparred often in the chamber, as Leung does with his political opponents, but yesterday the battleground shifted to a criminal court of law, with Wong conducting his own defence and cross-examining the chief executive, who was called as the prosecution’s first witness .
