HONG KONG: Hong Kong’s most prominent media tycoon Jimmy Lai was sentenced on Monday (Feb 9) to 20 years in jail on national security charges, including two counts of conspiracy to collude with foreign forces and one of publishing seditious materials.
The sentence ends Hong Kong’s highest-profile national security trial and a legal saga that has spanned nearly five years.
Lai, founder of the feisty shuttered Apple Daily newspaper, was first arrested in August 2020 and was convicted last year.
Lai‘s sentence of 20 years was within the harshest penalty “band” of 10 years to life imprisonment for offences of a “grave nature” and is the most severe punishment meted out yet.
The three national security judges said Lai‘s sentence was enhanced by the fact that he was the “mastermind” and driving force behind “persistent” foreign collusion conspiracies.
They cited prosecution evidence that the conspiracies had sought sanctions, blockades and other hostile acts from the U.S. and other countries while involving a web of individuals including Apple Daily staff, activists and foreigners.
Besides Lai, six former senior Apple Daily staffers, an activist and a paralegal were sentenced to jail terms ranging between six and 10 years.
“In the present case, Lai was no doubt the mastermind of all three conspiracies charged and therefore he warrants a heavier sentence,” the judges said.
“As regards the others, it is difficult to distinguish their relative culpability.”
The 78-year-old, a British citizen, has denied all the charges against him, saying in court he is a “political prisoner” facing persecution from Beijing.
Lai‘s plight has been criticised by global leaders, including US President Donald Trump and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, spotlighting a years-long national security crackdown in the China-ruled Asian financial hub, following mass pro-democracy protests in 2019.
Those concerns reflected in part Lai‘s long-standing international profile as a pro-democracy critic of China’s Communist Party leadership and his extensive political connections, particularly among US Republicans – ties that prosecutors cited during the case.
At the height of the protests in July 2019, Lai met then-US Vice President Mike Pence and then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Washington.
“The rule of law has been completely shattered in Hong Kong,” said Jodie Ginsberg, CEO of the Committee to Protect Journalists. “Today’s egregious decision is the final nail in the coffin for freedom of the press in Hong Kong.”
“The international community must step up its pressure to free Jimmy Lai if we want press freedom to be respected anywhere in the world.”
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/east-asia/hong-kong-media-tycoon-jimmy-lai-trial-sentence-20-years-prison-apple-daily-5916421
