It was the most anticipated verdict of the year in Hong Kong: the renowned media mogul Jimmy Lai, a prominent figure in the pro-democracy movement who has been locked up in maximum security prison under isolation for over 1,800 days, has been found guilty of national security offenses and sedition.
Lai, 78, who was already serving another sentence for fraud, could face life imprisonment for being deemed the "mastermind" behind conspiracies aimed at destabilizing the Chinese government. The sentence will be announced early next year. Lai was arrested in 2020 under a national security law imposed by Chinese authorities to quell the massive anti-government protests that rocked the city in 2019.
The trial lasted nearly two years and has been closely monitored by foreign governments and international observers, who have denounced the end of judicial independence and press freedom in the former British colony, despite Beijing's commitment to maintaining its civil liberties akin to Western democracies for 50 years after returning to Chinese rule in 1997. Since then, no trial has been as closely watched as Jimmy Lai's.
The protagonist was primarily known for being the founder of the now-defunct newspaper Apple Daily, one of the main critical voices against Beijing. Hong Kong prosecutors alleged that Lai and others, including former employees of the newspaper, foreign politicians, and activists, worked together to "collude with a foreign country" to endanger China's national security, including imposing "sanctions, blockades, or other hostile activities" against Hong Kong.
Lai, who obtained British citizenship before Hong Kong's handover to China, was also accused of using Apple Daily to "publish seditious materials" between April 2019 and June 2021. This accusation targeted 161 "seditious articles" published in the newspaper that violated the existing sedition law from the colonial era, including around thirty opinion columns signed by the convicted individual.
Lai pleaded not guilty to all charges. However, the judges concluded that he used his influence and wealth to fund a pro-democracy group that allegedly pressured countries to impose sanctions on China and Hong Kong. During the trial, Lai's alleged connections with activists and politicians in the United States, the United Kingdom, Taiwan, Japan, and Israel were listed, to whom the mogul would have "directly or indirectly" requested sanctions.
Lai himself acknowledged in one of the sessions that he had met in 2019 with Mike Pence, then Vice President of the United States, and with former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, but he argued that in those meetings, he only asked them to publicly express their support for Hong Kong.
"We have no doubt that the accused never wavered in his intention to destabilize the government of the Chinese Communist Party," said Judge Esther Toh on Monday, who read the written verdict from the High Court. The next hearing is scheduled for January 12, and Lai will be able to appeal once the sentence is known.
Throughout the trial, the United Kingdom and the European Parliament have called for Lai's release. Even former U.S. President Donald Trump publicly promised to try to "save him." Washington officials stated that the Republican had raised the "difficult situation of Lai" with Chinese President Xi Jinping during their meeting at the end of October in South Korea.
Several human rights organizations have criticized the verdict on Monday. "Lai was imprisoned simply because he and his newspaper Apple Daily criticized the government. Hong Kong's national security laws are not designed to protect people but to silence them," says Sarah Brooks from Amnesty International.
"The Chinese government's mistreatment of Jimmy Lai aims to silence anyone who dares to criticize the Communist Party. Foreign governments should respond to the farce of Lai's trial by pressing for the case to be overturned and his immediate release," states Elaine Pearson from Human Rights Watch.
Reporters Without Borders denounce the "illegal conviction," emphasizing the alarming deterioration of press freedom in the city. "The founder of Apple Daily has embodied the courage of independent journalists in Hong Kong. Democracies must act swiftly: if they do not, Lai will die in prison, sending a clear signal to the Chinese regime that it can spread its authoritarian model and violate international law without consequences," they state in a press release.
Lai's health has deteriorated during his imprisonment, although authorities claim he receives adequate medical care. His personal journey - arriving in Hong Kong as a stowaway at the age of 12, thriving as a textile entrepreneur, and becoming a media mogul at odds with the Chinese state for decades - now culminates in a sentence that symbolizes the practical end of the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong, where the opposition has been imprisoned, silenced, or forced into exile.
Lai's story in Hong Kong began as a stowaway at the age of 12. The businessman was born in Guangdong, southern China, and at just nine years old, he was already working carrying bags at a train station. In 1960, he hid at the bottom of a ship bound for Hong Kong, then under British rule. He began making a living working in a woolen glove factory.
By the age of 20, he had been appointed director of the factory, but the business was bankrupt. Lai then invested all his savings in the stock market, luckily making enough money to buy the factory and relaunch the business as a sweater manufacturer for the United States.
In the 1980s, he founded his own clothing brand, Giordano. In his first foray into fashion, focused on selling expensive clothes to the city's colonial elites, he was not very successful. But he changed course and focused on producing cheap clothing for the middle and lower classes. A few years later, the company was already listed on the stock exchange.
Lai has mentioned in some interviews that a turning point in his career was the June 4, 1989 massacre in Tiananmen Square. "It was the repression in Beijing that drove my shift towards the media business. I dedicated myself to the business of freedom," the businessman recounted.
He first launched Next Weekly, a magazine specializing in investigative journalism. This was followed by other publications - cultural, economic, travel-related - all sharing an editorial stance highly critical of Beijing.
A couple of years before Hong Kong returned to Chinese rule in 1995, Lai invested 100 million Hong Kong dollars (around 12 million euros) to open Apple Daily, the newspaper that quickly became one of the city's highest-circulation papers and a pillar of a media empire that also successfully expanded into Taiwan.
Apple Daily ended up being a tabloid mixing articles with sensationalist approaches to local events, gossip pages with the latest celebrity news, and investigative reports. Opinions about this newspaper have always been divided. But during its 26 years in circulation, Apple Daily consistently maintained a highly critical stance towards the Chinese government. This stance intensified especially in 2019 when the protests erupted.
Lai, who at the time of his first arrest in 2020 had an estimated fortune of 1.2 billion dollars, was one of the major benefactors of student movements and pro-democracy parties that flooded the streets of Hong Kong demanding more freedoms. He also participated in some demonstrations.
Lai was first sentenced in 2020 to five years and nine months in prison for a fraud case, although he maintained that a corruption case against him was fabricated. A year later, he received another sentence of 13 months in prison for inciting protesters to participate in a banned commemoration of the Tiananmen massacre.