A Hong Kong court sentenced 12 people on Saturday to prison over the storming of the city’s legislative council building at the height of the anti-government protests in 2019.

Hundreds of protesters swarmed into the legislature the night of July 1, 2019 — the 22nd anniversary of the former British colony’s return to China — defacing pictures and smashing furniture. Some spray-painted slogans in the chamber and painted over the territory’s emblem on a wall before vacating the site as riot police cleared surrounding streets with tear gas before moving inside.

The 12 defendants, including former student leader Althea Suen, actor Gregory Wong, and activists Ventus Lau and Owen Chow, were previously convicted for rioting. Some of them were also found guilty of other related charges. Judge Li Chi-ho handed down jail terms ranging between four-and-a-half years and six years and 10 months, depending on the degree of their involvement and mitigating factors.

Li said the legislature holds a unique constitutional status and the nature of the event was serious.

The case also involved two other defendants who were reporters. They were previously acquitted of the rioting charge but were convicted for unlawful entry into the legislature. One was fined $192 and the other $128, Li said.

After the sentences were handed down, some supporters of the defendants cried in the courtroom.

On Monday, Lau said in a hearing that he entered the legislature in hopes of minimising the number of injuries. Even if he could choose a hundred times, he said he would still go in because he’d prefer to go to jail rather than witness someone getting hurt.

“Since I am sympathetic to the protesters, I am willing to go to jail with them,” he said.

In the same hearing, Chow said when residents suddenly turned radical, it was actually their cry of desperation when all paths to their goal were blocked.