US EditionHong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai found guilty on all charges in landmark national security trial
Jimmy Lai, founder of Apple Daily, was convicted for colluding with foreign forces and sedition under Hong Kong's National Security Law, facing possible life imprisonment.
- On Monday, December 15, the High Court found Jimmy Lai guilty of collusion and sedition at West Kowloon Law Courts Building, with sentencing upcoming.
- Prosecutors argued Jimmy Lai used Apple Daily, now-shuttered newspaper, to publish seditious articles and lobby foreign governments for sanctions, with this campaign continuing before and after the National Security Law enactment.
- The Court relied on contemporaneous WhatsApp and Signal messages, six accomplice prosecution witnesses, and found none discredited despite extensive cross-examination.
- Sentencing is expected early next year; Western governments and rights groups called the trial politically motivated and demanded Lai's immediate release, while John Lee, Hong Kong chief executive, welcomed the verdict.
- The ruling bookends a year that saw the Democratic Party disband, amid Apple Daily's closure and the NSL's nearly 100% conviction rate drawing international scrutiny of judicial independence.
252 Articles
252 Articles
Jimmy Lai’s Hong Kong show trial shames Britain
Nobody seriously expected Jimmy Lai to be cleared of the charges he faced in Hong Kong. National security trials in the territory, which can be held without a jury in front of a specially selected panel of judges, have a conviction rate of more than 95 per cent. It was still shocking, however, to see Hong Kong’s most famous media tycoon, who is 78 and a British citizen, pronounced guilty on 15 December of foreign collusion and conspiring to comm…
In Hong Kong media mogul Jimmy Lai’s conviction, role of China’s National Security Law
The law is among the various institutional changes that China has introduced to the city in recent years. Lai’s trial became a test of whether editorial direction could constitute criminal conspiracy.
Mogul’s Conviction Shows Extent of Beijing’s Control over Hong Kong Press, Courts
Hong Kong newspaper founder Jimmy Lai, a leading figure in the city’s pro-democracy movement and an ardent critic of the Chinese Communist Party, was convicted Monday on three charges of sedition and collusion with foreign forces in a landmark national security ruling.
'He has suffered enough,' Jimmy Lai's daughter says
Hong Kong's High Court found media mogul and pro-democracy campaigner Jimmy Lai guilty of conspiracy to collude with foreign forces and sedition. The case has become a symbol of Beijing’s crackdown on dissent. Geoff Bennett discussed more with Claire Lai, Jimmy Lai’s daughter.
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