But defence counsel accuses Occupy protester of being ‘deliberately uncooperative’
CHRIS.LAU@SCMP.COM
UPDATED : Friday, 10 June, 2016, 2:55pm
Tsang, flanked by supporters, outside District Court in Wan Chai. Photo: David Wong
Prosecution witness Ken Tsang Kin-chiu told a court on Friday that when asked to give statements against seven police officers accused of assaulting him during the 2014 Occupy movement he feared being asked leading questions.
Tsang was responding to defence counsel Cheng Huan SC’s questions under cross-examination on the seventh day of the District Court trial in which his testimony on the authenticity of videos that prosecutors sought to submit to court had been challenged.
Cheng told the court that Tsang was invited to theComplaints Against Police Office, better known as CAPO, on October 16 last year to identify himself in a series of videos.
On October 20, four days after the invitation, Tsang went to view 20 videos but refused to make an immediate statement, the court heard.
Some of the videos were among those shown in court. The prosecutors had argued the recorded events led to the alleged assault on Tsang. But the defence was trying to block their admission.
When asked why he refused to make a statement, Tsang replied: “The legal advice I obtained was to prepare further before I was to give a statement.”
But Cheng persisted. “You were asked to simply identify yourself,” he told Tsang. “What’s so difficult about that?”
“My worry was that during the process police would try to put to me a lot of pre-set questions,” Tsang replied.
It was alleged that Chief Inspector Wong Cho-shing, 48, Senior Inspector Lau Cheuk-ngai, 29, Detective Sergeant Pak Wing-bun, 42, and constables Lau Hing-pui, 38, Chan Siu-tan, 31, Kwan Ka-ho, 32, and Wong Wai-ho, 36, assaulted Tsang at a pump station near Lung Wui Road in Admiralty on October 15, 2014.
“My worry was that during the process police would try to put to me a lot of pre-set questions,”
KEN TSANG KIN-CHIU, IN COURT TESTIMONY ON JUNE 10
They deny a joint count of causing grievous bodily harm with intent. Chan denies a further charge of common assault for later allegedly assaulting Tsang at Central Police Station.
On Friday, Cheng suggested that Tsang was being “deliberately uncooperative” and complicated the police investigation by refusing to make a statement at CAPO.
Tsang said he tried to fully cooperate, but said problems arose in the course of his being asked to make a statement. He disagreed with Cheng’s suggestion that he was concerned about possibly incriminating himself.
He declined to answer the questions at that time, he testified on Friday, based on legal advice he was given.
Yet Tsang conceded that in a different statement made on October 19, 2014, four days after the alleged assault, he had not mentioned that the number of individuals assaulting him was seven.
However, he told the court he had not made the evidence up as he went along, as Cheng suggested.
Earlier Tsang told the court that those who used force on him had to be police officers because protesters would not do so.
Defence counsel Edwin Choy Wai-bond SC, accused Tsang of political posturing in court as the pro-democracy protester had previously expressed interest in making himself a candidate for the upcoming Legislative Council elections.
The trial continues before Judge David Dufton.
http://m.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-crime/article/1971633/ken-tsang-worried-about-leading-questions-when-police-asked
