A 20-year-old student was the first to be cleared of rioting charges on Tuesday among those involved in the anti-government protests in Hong Kong last year as a judge found the police officers’ account of the events unreliable.

Prosecutors accused student Lam Tsz-ho of throwing bricks at the police during a protest in Wong Tai Sin on October 1, China’s National Day.

Two police officers testified they saw Lam emerge from a group of 10 black-clad people and hurled bricks at them. They claimed that he was the only one among the protesters who did not wear a helmet and later subdued him outside a school.

However Judge Sham Siu-man acquitted Lam of rioting charges, as he found the police officers’ account of the incident unreliable and that it was puzzling that the prosecution did not submit closed circuit television footage as evidence.

Lam thanked friends and family for their support outside the Kwun Tong court on Tuesday and said he was not surprised by the ruling.

“I just didn’t do it,” Lam said.

When asked if the case would affect his participation in future protests, Lam said: “I’d have to think about it, I’m still feeling quite shaken up by all of this.”

In his verdict, Sham said there were inconsistencies between the police officers’ testimonies and the evidence presented, making it difficult for him to accept that they were telling the complete truth.

According to a Telegram footage submitted by the defence counsel, a fire truck was parked at the site for a period of time. However, one police officer said he had no recollection of any truck at the scene, while the other said no such thing had happened.

In denying that there was no fire truck present, Sham could not rule out that the police officers were trying to deliberately embellish facts of the case to make it appear that their view was unobstructed at the time.

He also found it puzzling that police officers did not ask a nearby school for security footage that could have been crucial to the case. Cameras at the school’s gate should have captured Lam being subdued by the police on Tung Tau Tsuen Road and could have also confirmed whether the fire truck had appeared.

Lam’s defence lawyers argued that police had simply “arrested the wrong person and arrested whoever was in black.”
In response to a media enquiry from Apple Daily, the spokesperson for the Department of Justice said that they would examine the judge’s ruling and the prosecutor’s report before deciding whether to follow up on the case.

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