Hong Kong Court Convicts Media Tycoon Jimmy Lai in National Security Trial

A Hong Kong court on Monday convicted Jimmy Lai, the 78-year-old founder of the pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily, of conspiring to collude with foreign forces and of conspiracy to publish seditious articles, a verdict that could send him to prison for life, according to CBS News and NBC News.

Lai, a British citizen and one of Beijing’s most prominent critics, was found guilty on all three charges: two counts of colluding with foreign forces under the national security law and one count of seditious conspiracy under a colonial-era law. He pleaded not guilty. He was arrested in August 2020 under the national security law Beijing imposed after the 2019 protests and has spent five years in custody, much of it in solitary confinement. CBS said he has appeared thinner and more frail. He will be sentenced later and can appeal; hearings on mitigation were set to begin Jan. 12, and the collusion charge carries a maximum of life in prison.

Reading from an 855-page verdict, Judge Esther Toh said Lai had made a “constant invitation” to the United States to help bring down the Chinese government “with the excuse of helping the people of Hong Kong.” NBC reported that the judges focused on Lai’s meetings during the 2019 protests with then-Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, national security adviser John Bolton and members of Congress. Toh compared it to an American asking Russia to bring down the U.S. government “under the guise of helping the state of California.” The judges found that Lai never wavered in his intention to destabilize the Chinese government, continuing “in a less explicit way” after the law took effect on June 30, 2020, and called him the mastermind of the conspiracies, according to CBS and NBC.

Lai, who spent 52 days testifying, denied using his overseas contacts to influence foreign policy on China and Hong Kong, NBC reported. NBC called the three judges handpicked, and CBS described them as government-vetted; the trial lasted 156 days and began in December 2023. Western governments and rights groups have called it politically motivated, NBC said.

The case is a test for Hong Kong’s press freedom and judicial independence in the former British colony, which returned to Chinese rule in 1997, and it has been watched closely by the U.S., Britain and the European Union, CBS reported. Apple Daily was forced to close in 2021 after police raided its newsroom, arrested its senior editors and froze its assets. Lai’s wife and son and Cardinal Joseph Zen attended the hearing; Lai smiled and waved to his family, NBC said.

Washington has made the case a diplomatic issue. NBC reported that President Donald Trump has repeatedly promised to “free” Lai, and CBS reported that British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has made securing Lai’s release a priority.