Courts | Sulu Sou pleads not guilty, first witnesses heard

Jorge Menezes, Sulu Sou and Scott Chiang

Lawmaker Sulu Sou pleaded not guilty to all charges laid against him for his qualified disobedience to the police authority’s command linked to a demonstration on May 15, 2016.

Yesterday, Sou’s trial kicked off at the Court of First Instance. Sou is being trialed together with the first defendant of the case, Scott Chiang, who was the former president of the New Macau Association (NMA).

Both denied the charges against them, having only confirmed the time and location mentioned in the summonses.

On May 15, 2016, Sou and Chiang were part of a demonstration led by NMA against the Macao Foundation over a RMB100 million donation made by the foundation to Jinan University, in Guangdong.

During the trial, Chiang denied the accusation that indicated he “had intended or instigated” the demonstration’s participants to engage in certain protest behaviors, which were later deemed by the police to constitute disobedience.

In turn, Sou also denied the accusations regarding “disobeying” police orders and “encouraging others” or “leading others”.

The judge then questioned Sou’s intention behind visiting the Chief Executive’s (CE) official residence (St. Sancha Palace) to deliver his appeal, instead of visiting the Government Headquarters.

Before Sou eventually threw a paper plane into the palacecompound, the Public Security Police Force (PSP) issued several verbal warnings to Sou and others also at the scene who were regarded by PSP as forming part of the crowds led by both Sou and Chiang. The same questions were also posed to  Chiang.

The main accusation stated that Sou and Chiang disobeyed the police’s command. However, Sou and Chiang confessed that they wondered about the legitimacy and legal grounds of the police’s command. 

As such, both Sou and Chiang claimed in their defense that it was their personal decision to deliver the letter to the CE’s official residence, and they did not call on the demonstration participants to join their walk to the St. Sancha Palace. Along their way, the police had set up barriers to notify people that entry to the area was banned.

Sou and  Chiang noted that they stopped in front of the cordon lines around the restricted area, hoping that they could deliver their letters to the Chief Executive directly.

When questioned by their lawyers, Jorge Menezes and Pedro Leal, lawmaker Sou and Chiang both again confirmed that they did not cross the restricted area.

According to both defendants, public roads were clear for the vehicles and pedestrians to get through.

Moreover, they said that the police never issued any warning to themselves not to move forward.

The trial resumed at 2.30 p.m., with six witnesses in total being called to the court to give their testimony. 

Originally, 13 witnesses were planned to testify at the trial yesterday afternoon.

However, the unexpected long questioning of the first witness took three and a half hours.

During this elongated period of time, approximately an hour was used to watch recording clips related to the case. 

The first witness, a PSP officer named Lam, was responsible for  managing the demonstration orders.

In particular, Lam was deployed to the Penha hill area and the government headquarters.

He was also the police officer who announced verbal warnings to the crowds and to an allegedly illegal assembly, which was accused of having been led by Sou and Chiang. 

The crowds, based on the video clip played during the trial, consisted mainly of journalists, with the police claiming that there were between 10 to 20 participants making up the illegal assembly. 

During his testimony, Lam’s full honesty was doubted by one of the lawyers, who also doubted Lam’s cooperation with the questions posed by the lawyers.  

Overall, the lawyers of the defendants questioned Lam whether the transportation network was jammed due to Sou and Chiang, or due to other people’s behavior. 

According to Lam, for public security, the police set up barricades to prevent people from getting to one side of the palace.

However, one lawyer pointed out that the police would only ban one entry point to the area, which the defendants did not break into.

The lawyer noted that it was the police force who put up cordon lines around the restricted area, and who banned any mode of transportation along the related street, not Sou and Chiang.

Previously, the New Macau Association had applied to assemble at the Penha Hill garden, after the demonstration. However, the Civic and Municipal Bureau refused the application. 

When questioned by the lawyer whether he was aware of this, Lam at first denied it, before eventually admitting that he was aware of the fact after being questioned by the judge. 

Regarding one of the main points of questioning, that being whether the crowds jammed traffic while demonstrating, the lawyer also questioned one of the witnesses.

The witness declared that the presence of crowds had some impact on traffic, but he did not state the degree of the impact nor was he able to specify a number of vehicles which could not pass through the area. 

One of the lawyers stated that “even though I respect the witness, it seems he is not willing to cooperate” with the lawyer’s question. The lawyer suspected that the witness was providing a false testimony. 

Similar questions were asked to nearly all witnesses, who mainly consisted of police officers involved in the actions surrounding the related demonstration. 

With the exception of the first witness, who was questioned for three and a half hours, the prosecutors and the lawyers in court spent somewhere around 30 minutes asking questions to the remaining witnesses.

The trial finished yesterday evening, at 7.53 p.m. It will resume today at 9.30 a.m. at the Court of First Instance.