Former Hong Kong lawmaker sentenced to over 3 years in jail on charge of riot during 2019 protests

HONG KONG (AP) — A Hong Kong judge on Thursday sentenced a former pro-democracy lawmaker to three years and one month in prison on a charge of riot after an incident in which he was beaten up at a subway station during the city’s anti-government protests in 2019.

Lam Cheuk-ting was among dozens injured when a group of men armed with wooden poles and metal rods attacked protesters and bystanders at Yuen Long train station on July 21, 2019. The attackers, wearing white shirts that contrasted with protesters’ black attire, claimed they were protecting their homeland in Yuen Long, a residential district in Hong Kong’s New Territories.

Last December, district court judge Stanley Chan convicted Lam of rioting, ruling that his words to the white-shirted men had “fanned the flames." Chan rejected Lam's claim that he was acting as a mediator or protecting residents in his role as a lawmaker at the scene, saying he had tried to exploit the situation for political gain.

The landmark verdict could shape the city’s historical narrative of the 2019 incident, a turning point that intensified the protest movement as the public criticized police for their delayed response. About 10 white-shirted men have been convicted in other cases related to the clash in the subway station, local media reported.

In Thursday's hearing, the judge said although Lam had not engaged in violent acts, his presence as a lawmaker and political figure led to a deterioration of the confrontational situation. Lam did not show remorse in his letter meant to plead for a lesser sentence, Chan said.

The former lawmaker said in a letter to the judge that what he once believed was right had become wrong or even a crime.

“For this, I have no resentment, no regrets. But my guilt comes from causing pain to my dear ones who raised and nurtured me,” he said.

In the same case, Chan also ordered six less prominent defendants to be jailed for terms from two years and one month to two years and seven months, including some who had hurled objects or shot jets of water at the white-shirted men with a hosepipe. Chan dismissed arguments that some of them were acting in self-defense in his December verdict.

As Chan read out the sentences, some people sitting in the public gallery wept.

Hours before the hearing, several supporters of the defendants waved at prison vans outside the court building and chanted “ga yau,” a common phrase of encouragement in Cantonese. Lam smiled at supporters as he entered the courtroom.

The 2019 protests were sparked by a proposed extradition law that would have allowed criminal suspects in Hong Kong to be sent to the mainland for trial. The government withdrew the bill, but the protesters widened their demands to include direct elections for the city’s leaders and police accountability.

The social movement was the biggest challenge to the Hong Kong government since the former British colony returned to Chinese rule in 1997. In response, Beijing imposed a national security law in 2020, leading to the arrest of many activists. Others were silenced or went into exile.

Lam is already serving a sentence of six years and nine months in the city’s biggest national security case. Chan said he can serve three months of the newly given 37-month term concurrently with that sentence.

Last week, the political party he belonged to took an initial step toward dissolving, another sign of the drastic political changes in the city since Beijing imposed the security law, which it said was necessary to restore Hong Kong's stability.

CORRECTS THE YEAR - A supporter waves hand to a Correctional Services prison van as it arrives at the District Court ahead of the sentencing on a riot case involving a former pro-democracy lawmaker Lam Cheuk-ting in Wan Chai, Hong Kong on Thursday, Feb. 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Chan Long Hei)

CORRECTS THE YEAR - A Correctional Services prison van arrives at the District Court ahead of the sentencing on a riot case involving a former pro-democracy lawmaker Lam Cheuk-ting in Wan Chai, Hong Kong on Thursday, Feb. 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Chan Long Hei)

Police officers stand guard outside the District Court ahead of the sentencing on a riot case involving a former pro-democracy lawmaker Lam Cheuk-ting in Wan Chai, Hong Kong on Thursday, Feb. 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Chan Long Hei)

Emily Lau Wai-hing, former chairman of the Democratic Party of Hong Kong, arrives at the District Court ahead of the sentencing on a riot case involving a former pro-democracy lawmaker Lam Cheuk-ting in Wan Chai, Hong Kong on Thursday, Feb. 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Chan Long Hei)

A Correctional Services prison van arrives at the District Court ahead of the sentencing on a riot case involving a former pro-democracy lawmaker Lam Cheuk-ting in Wan Chai, Hong Kong on Thursday, Feb. 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Chan Long Hei)

Representatives from the U.S. and Canada consulates leave the District Court ahead of the sentencing on a riot case involving a former pro-democracy lawmaker Lam Cheuk-ting in Wan Chai, Hong Kong on Thursday, Feb. 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Chan Long Hei)

One of the defendants, former pro-democracy lawmaker Lam Cheuk-ting's mother, center, leaves the District Court ahead of the sentencing on a riot case in Wan Chai, Hong Kong on Thursday, Feb. 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Chan Long Hei)

CORRECTS THE YEAR - A Correctional Services prison van arrives at the District Court ahead of the sentencing on a riot case involving a former pro-democracy lawmaker Lam Cheuk-ting in Wan Chai, Hong Kong on Thursday, Feb. 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Chan Long Hei)

CORRECTS THE YEAR - Police officers stand guard outside the District Court ahead of the sentencing on a riot case involving a former pro-democracy lawmaker Lam Cheuk-ting in Wan Chai, Hong Kong on Thursday, Feb. 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Chan Long Hei)

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran's president said Tuesday he instructed the country’s foreign minister to “pursue fair and equitable negotiations” with the United States, the first clear sign from Tehran it wants to try to negotiate as tensions remain high with Washington after the Mideast country's bloody crackdown on nationwide protests last month.

The announcement marked a major turn for reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian, who broadly had warned Iranians for weeks that the turmoil in his country had gone beyond his control. It also signals that the president received support from Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for talks that the 86-year-old cleric previously had dismissed.

Turkey had been working behind the scenes to make the talks happen there later this week as U.S. Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff is traveling in the region.

But whether Iran and the U.S. can reach an agreement remains to be seen, particularly as President Donald Trump now has included Iran's nuclear program in a list of demands from Tehran in any talks. Trump ordered the bombing of three Iranian nuclear sites during the 12-day war Israel launched against Iran in June.

Writing on X, Pezeshkian said in English and Farsi that the decision came after “requests from friendly governments in the region to respond to the proposal by the President of the United States for negotiations.”

“I have instructed my Minister of Foreign Affairs, provided that a suitable environment exists — one free from threats and unreasonable expectations — to pursue fair and equitable negotiations, guided by the principles of dignity, prudence, and expediency,” he said.

The U.S. has yet to acknowledge the talks will take place. A semiofficial news agency in Iran on Monday reported — then later deleted without explanation — that Pezeshkian had issued such an order to Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who held multiple rounds of talks with Witkoff before the 12-day war.

Late Monday, the pan-Arab satellite channel Al Mayadeen, which is politically allied with the Iranian-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, aired an interview with Ali Shamkhani, a top Khamenei adviser on security.

Shamkhani, who now sits on the country’s Supreme National Security Council and who in the 1980s led Iran's navy, wore a naval uniform as he spoke.

He suggested if the talks happened, they would be indirect at the beginning, then moving to direct talks if a deal appeared to be attainable. Direct talks with the U.S. long have been a highly charged political issue within Iran's theocracy, with reformists like Pezeshkian pushing for them and hard-liners dismissing them.

The talks would solely focus on nuclear issues, he added.

Asked about whether Russia could take Iran's enriched uranium like it did in Tehran's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, Shamkhani dismissed the idea, saying there was “no reason” to do so. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov on Monday said Russia had “long offered these services as a possible option that would alleviate certain irritants for a number of countries.”

“Iran does not seek nuclear weapons, will not seek a nuclear weapon and will never stockpile nuclear weapons, but the other side must pay a price in return for this," he said.

Iran had been enriching uranium up to 60% purity, a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels. The International Atomic Energy Agency had said Iran was the only country in the world to enrich to that level that wasn't armed with the bomb.

Iran has been refusing requests by the IAEA to inspect the sites bombed in the June war.

“The quantity of enriched uranium remains unknown, because part of the stockpile is under rubble, and there is no initiative yet to extract it, as it is extremely dangerous," Shamkhani said.

Witkoff is expected to meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli security officials on Tuesday, according to a White House official who was not authorized to comment publicly about the talks and spoke on condition of anonymity.

While in Israel, Witkoff will meet with the head of the Mossad intelligence service and the Israeli military's chief of staff, according to another official who was not authorized to speak to the media and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Israel is expected to ask that any agreement with Iran include removing enriched uranium from the country, stopping the enrichment of uranium, limiting the creation of ballistic missiles and ending support for Tehran's proxies.

However, Shakhani in his interview rejected giving up uranium enrichment — a major obstacle in earlier talks with the U.S. In November, Araghchi said Iran was doing no enrichment in the country because of the U.S. bombing of the nuclear sites.

Witkoff later will travel to Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, later in the week for Russia-Ukraine talks, the official said.

“We have talks going on with Iran, we’ll see how it all works out,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday. Asked what his threshold was for military action against Iran, he declined to elaborate.

“I’d like to see a deal negotiated,” Trump said. “Right now, we’re talking to them, we’re talking to Iran, and if we could work something out, that’d be great. And if we can’t, probably bad things would happen.”

Mike Pompeo, a hard-liner on Iran who served as CIA director and secretary of state in Trump's first term, said it was “unimaginable that there can be a deal.”

“I think they may come away with some set of understandings,” Pompeo said at Dubai's World Governments Summit. "But to think that there’s a long-term solution that actually provides stability and peace to this region while the ayatollah is still in power is something I pray for but find unimaginable.”

Associated Press writers Melanie Lidman in Jerusalem and Aamer Madhani, Matthew Lee and Konstantin Toropin in Washington contributed to this report.

FILE - Masoud Pezeshkian, the President of Iran, attends the United Nations General Assembly at United Nations headquarters, on Sept. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Angelina Katsanis, File)