Hong Kong student leader Joshua Wong was in court Friday for the last day of a trial over pro-democracy protests, as he faces two imminent verdicts and a possible prison sentence.

Teenage Wong was at the forefront of mass rallies in 2014 which brought parts of the semi-autonomous city to a standstill as residents called on Beijing to allow fully free elections for future leaders.

He has been in and out of court hearings for the past year after being charged with multiple offences linked to protests leading up to what became known as the "Umbrella Movement".

Wong, now 19, has always argued that the cases against him are political persecution.

Friday saw final arguments in a case where Wong and two other young protest leaders were charged over climbing into a Hong Kong government complex forecourt known as Civic Square on September 26, 2014.

That protest triggered wider rallies that exploded two days later when police fired tear gas to disperse crowds.

Wong faces charges of taking part in an unlawful assembly and inciting others to do so, which carry a jail term of up to five years.

Defence lawyers argued that authorities should not have fenced off Civic Square -- previously a popular protest site open to the public -- in the febrile months before the Umbrella Movement.

"The reason why this problem has arisen is because there are people that are not allowing them to go in," said Michael Chai, a lawyer defending Wong's fellow protester Nathan Law.

"There was no damage to Civic Square...the force used was the mildest possible," added Wong's defence lawyer Randy Shek said.

The prosecution argued the fact they climbed into the square was unlawful and that the protest was pre-planned.

Wong did not comment Friday but has previously said he was preparing for a possible jail sentence.

The verdict will be handed down on June 29.

He will also face a verdict on May 23 in another case over an anti-China protest in the build-up to the pro-democracy rallies.

Hong Kong is semi-autonomous after being returned to China by Britain in 1997, with much greater freedoms than seen on the mainland.

But there are fears those freedoms are being eroded by increasing interference from Beijing.

Chinese man gets $400,000 for 20 years in jail: report
Beijing (AFP) May 13, 2016 - A Chinese man freed after spending more than 20 years in prison for murder will get more than $400,000 in compensation, a court said Friday according to official media.

Chen Man, now in his early 50s, was given a suspended death sentence -- which in China is normally commuted to life imprisonment -- in November 1994 for killing in the southern island province of Hainan.

After a series of appeals going as far as the country's highest court, he was finally acquitted and released in February due to a "lack of evidence".

It was one of a series of cases to highlight miscarriages of justice in China, where the courts are tightly controlled by the ruling Communist Party, forced confessions are widespread and more than 99 percent of criminal defendants are found guilty.

Hainan's provincial court, which upheld Chen's suspended death sentence in 1999, agreed Friday to pay him around 2.75 million yuan ($422,000) for loss of personal freedom and mental suffering, said state broadcaster China Central Television.

Chen initially demanded more than 9.66 million yuan in compensation and for the court to make formal apologies in national and local media outlets.

"I have to accept it," Chen told the Legal Evening News on Friday.

"We have regrets. But we acknowledge it according to the State Compensation Law," he said, according to the report.

China has occasionally exonerated wrongfully executed or jailed convicts after others came forward to confess their crimes, or in some cases because the supposed murder victim was later found alive.

Of those exonerated in recent years, Chen spent the longest in prison, state media said previously.

For others, the new verdicts came far too late. A man named Hugjiltu was cleared of rape and murder in 2014, nearly two decades after he was convicted and executed at the age of 18 in the northern region of Inner Mongolia.

The declaration of his innocence came nine years after another man confessed to the crime.