Jimmy Lai pleads not guilty to breaching Hong Kong national security law

Hong Kong publisher and democracy activist Jimmy Lai has pleaded not guilty to breaching a controversial national security law by conspiring to collude with foreign forces. The 76-year-old businessman, who is a British citizen, also pleaded not guilty to publishing seditious material, an offence under a colonial-era law.

The founder of Apple Daily, a tabloid newspaper that backed Hong Kong’s democracy movement, Mr Lai is the most high-profile figure to be prosecuted under the national security law that Beijing imposed in 2020. He is serving five years and nine months for fraud in a maximum-security prison, and he could face a life sentence if convicted of conspiracy to collude with foreign forces.

Lead prosecutor Anthony Chau told the court that Mr Lai used his media business and the platform it gave him to pursue a political agenda against the governments in Beijing and Hong Kong. “Under the guise of fighting for freedom and democracy, [he] had on multiple occasions engaged in making requests for foreign governments – in particular the US – to impose sanctions, blocks or engage in hostile activities,” Mr Chau said.

The prosecution said Mr Lai conspired with activists and human rights campaigners outside Hong Kong to lobby foreign countries, including Ireland, to impose sanctions on Hong Kong and Beijing. The court saw six interview clips the prosecution said showed Mr Lai expressing support for foreign interference in Hong Kong’s affairs.

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In an interview with Bloomberg in May 2020, Mr Lai described Donald Trump as “our only salvation” and called on him to impose “draconian” sanctions on Chinese officials in response to the imposition of the national security law. The following month he told Radio Free Asia, which is supported by the US government, that foreign pressure could help Hong Kong to maintain its freedoms and rule of law. “When the US and Europe are not paying lip service, but implementing sanctions, I think it is possible that the national security law will not be executed even if it is imposed in Hong Kong,” he said.

The prosecution also played a clip of an interview Mr Lai gave to the Foundation for the Defence of Democracies, a neo-conservative think tank in Washington. It showed him describing tensions between Washington and Beijing as a new cold war, with the people of Hong Kong aligned with the US ideologically. “Hong Kong is fighting a war of the same values as yours,” he said. “It means we are fighting your war in your enemy’s camp.”

The authorities in Hong Kong have rejected claims that the outcome of Mr Lai’s trial, which is expected to last until March, is a foregone conclusion. But everyone charged under the law so far has been convicted. Unlike mainland China, Hong Kong has a common law system and an independent judiciary. But national security law cases are tried without a jury by three judges chosen by the Hong Kong government.

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