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S.Korean anti-WTO protester acquitted in HK
(AP)
Updated: 2006-03-23 16:59
HONG KONG - Only one of 14 suspects arrested in rioting at last year's
World Trade Organization meeting in Hong Kong faces charges, a judiciary
spokesman said Thursday.
South Korean protester Yun Il-kwon, 36, was still
charged with unlawful assembly, the spokesman, Mackenzie Mak, said.
Another South Korean protester, Park In-hwan, 31, was acquitted on
Wednesday of the same charges, Mak said.
Park and Yun were among 14
suspects accused of attacking riot police during an anti-globalization protest
on December 17. But charges against 12 of them had been dropped earlier.
The pair's defense lawyer, Martin Lee, argued that the prosecution case
was weakened by unreliable police identification procedures, the South China
Morning Post newspaper reported.
The court was due to hand down a
verdict for Yun on March 30, Mak said. If convicted, Yun faces a maximum penalty
of five years' imprisonment.
About 1,000 protesters - many of them South
Korean - were rounded up at December's riot after they fought with police and
came close to storming the venue where trade ministers from around the world
were in the final hours of negotiating.
Many of the protesters opposed
the global trade body for trying to eliminate trade barriers that protect their
market from foreign competition.
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