A Hong Kong court has found former media tycoon Jimmy Lai guilty on three charges of sedition and foreign collusion that carry a maximum sentence of life in prison.
Lai, who turned 78 in jail last week, holds British citizenship and his case has been watched closely around the world as a measure of judicial independence in the city five years after Beijing imposed a draconian National Security Law (NSL).
A panel of three judges found Lai guilty on all three charges: conspiracy to print, publish, sell, offer for sale, distribute, display and/or reproduce seditious publications; and two charges of conspiracy to commit collusion with a foreign country or with external elements to endanger national security.
High court justice Esther Toh said former staff at Lai’s Apple Daily who testified against him were credible but that his own evidence was evasive and unreliable.
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The court held Lai responsible for 161 opinion pieces critical of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Hong Kong government published in Apple Daily that were found to be seditious. And it ruled that Lai was lobbying foreign governments to impose sanctions on Beijing and Hong Kong both before and after the NSL came into force.
“The only reasonable inference we can draw from the preponderance of the evidence is that [Lai’s] only intent whether pre- or post-NSL was to seek the downfall of the CCP even though the ultimate cost was the sacrifice of the interests of the people of the [People’s Republic of China] and [Hong Kong]. This was the ultimate aim of the conspiracies and secessionist publications,” Ms Toh said.
Lai has been in solitary confinement for most of the five years he has been behind bars but the court heard that his lawyers had requested that he be held apart from other inmates. Donald Trump raised his case with Xi Jinping earlier this year but neither Washington nor Beijing has given details of the discussion.
Representatives of a number of western diplomatic missions in Hong Kong attended the hearing on Monday when the verdict was delivered. Lai’s wife Teresa and his son Shun-yan arrived at the court building with retired cardinal Joseph Zen.
Amnesty International said that the verdict was predictable but nonetheless dismaying, describing it as a death knell for press freedom in Hong Kong.
“This verdict is not just about one man; it is the latest step in a systematic crackdown on freedom of expression in Hong Kong: targeting not only protests and political parties, but the very idea that people can – indeed, should – hold power to account,” Amnesty’s China director, Sarah Brooks, said in a statement.
“Jimmy Lai is a prisoner of conscience, jailed solely for peacefully exercising his right to freedom of expression, and he must be immediately and unconditionally released. The law that has been used to target him, and so many others, must be internationally condemned for what it is: a cover for the authorities in Beijing and Hong Kong to carry on their crackdown.”
The court has set aside four days for mitigation hearings starting on January 12th before it delivers its sentence.
