HONG Kong pro-democracy campaigner and media tycoon Jimmy Lai has been found guilty of colluding with foreign forces under the city’s controversial national security law (NSL).
The 78-year-old UK citizen, who has been in jail since December 2020, pleaded not guilty. He faces life in prison and is expected to be sentenced early next year.
Lai used his now-defunct Apple Daily newspaper as part of a wider effortto lobby foreign governments to impose sanctions on Hong Kong and China, the court found.
Hong Kong chief executive John Lee welcomed the verdict, noting that Lai’s actions “damaged the country’s interests and the welfare of Hong Kongers”. Rights groups called it “a cruel judicial farce”.
They say the NSL, which Beijing defends as essential for the city’s stability, has been used to crush dissent.
Delivering the verdict yesterday Judge Esther Toh said there is “no doubt” that Jimmy Lai “harboured hatred” for the People’s Republic of China (PRC), citing his “constant invitation to the US to help bring down the government of the PRC with the excuse of helping the people of Hong Kong”.
When Lai testified in November, he denied all the charges against him, saying he had “never” used his foreign contacts to influence foreign policy on Hong Kong.
He was also asked about his meeting with then-secretary of state Mike Pompeo, to which he said he had asked Pompeo, “not to do something but to say something, to voice support for Hong Kong”.
Lai, one of the fiercest critics of the Chinese state, was a key figure in the pro-democracy protests that engulfed Hong Kong in 2019. Beijing responded to the months-long demonstrations, which sometimes erupted into violent clashes with police, by introducing the NSL.
The law was enacted without consulting the Hong Kong legislature and gave authorities broad powers to charge and jail people they deemed a threat to the city’s law and order, or the government’s stability.
Lai was accused of violating the NSL for his role in the protests and also through his tabloid Apple Daily, which became a standard bearer for the pro-democracy movement.
Monday’s ruling also found Lai guilty of publishing seditious material on Apple Daily under a separate colonial-era law.
Lai appeared calm as the verdict was read out and waved goodbye to his family as he was escorted out of the courtroom. Lai’s wife Teresa and one of his sons were in court, along with Cardinal Joseph Zen, a long-time friend who baptised Lai in 1997.
