Jimmy Lai was found guilty Monday, five years after his arrest on national security charges.ANTHONY WALLACE/AFP/Getty Images
A Hong Kong court on Monday found former Apple Daily publisher Jimmy Lai guilty in a landmark national security trial, more than five years after he was first arrested during a crackdown on the Chinese territory’s opposition movement.
Summarizing an 855-page verdict, lead judge Esther Toh said there was no doubt Mr. Lai had “harboured his resentment and hatred” of the People’s Republic of China for most of his adult life.
There was “indisputable evidence” Mr. Lai conspired with others to secure international sanctions against Hong Kong and China in a way that “constituted a threat and harm to the national security of the PRC” and Hong Kong, Ms. Toh said.
“His constant invitation to the U.S. to help bring down the government of the PRC with the excuse of helping the people of Hong Kong would be analogous to a situation where an American national asked for the help of Russia to bring down the U.S. government,” Ms. Toh said.
Flanked by police officers in a glass box at the back of the courtroom, where he has spent much of the more than two-year trial, Mr. Lai did not appear to react to the verdict, which many of his supporters have long regarded as predetermined, an accusation Hong Kong officials have repeatedly denied.
A prison van believed to be carrying Jimmy Lai leaves the West Kowloon Magistrates' Courts building Monday.Lam Yik/Reuters
Sentencing will take place at a later date, with the maximum punishment being life in prison. Mr. Lai’s family has warned that even a far shorter sentence could see the 78-year-old die behind bars, given his advanced age and worsening health after five years in detention, much of it spent in solitary confinement.
In a statement, the Hong Kong Journalists Association said Mr. Lai’s prosecution had caused “irreversible damage” to press freedom in the territory.
“Article 27 of the Basic Law guarantees freedom of the press,” the group said, referring to Hong Kong’s de facto constitution, “yet individuals in this case have been imprisoned for engaging in journalism.”
“This high-profile case had forced a major media organization to shut down even before a trial began. Hundreds of journalists lost their jobs, and Hong Kong citizens lost an important channel for obtaining news and information.”
Other press and human rights groups also denounced Monday’s verdict, with the Committee to Protect Journalists describing it as a “sham” and calling for Mr. Lai’s immediate release.
There was a heavy police presence outside the West Kowloon Law Courts ahead of the verdict, where hundreds had queued to get one of the limited number of public seats inside court. The hearing was attended by diplomats from Britain, Canada and the European Union, who have been a steady presence throughout the trial of Mr. Lai, a British citizen.
In a statement, Yvette Cooper, the British foreign secretary, said, “the U.K. condemns the politically motivated prosecution of Jimmy Lai that has resulted in today’s guilty verdict.”
“Jimmy Lai has been targeted by the Chinese and Hong Kong governments for peacefully exercising his right to freedom of expression,” Ms. Cooper said. “Beijing’s National Security Law was imposed on Hong Kong to silence China’s critics. The U.K. has repeatedly called for the National Security Law to be repealed and for an end to the prosecution of all individuals charged under it.”
A long-standing critic of China and backer of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement, Mr. Lai was arrested in 2020 during a crackdown that followed months of anti-government protests the year before. He was charged under a national security law imposed on Hong Kong by Beijing, accused of sedition and colluding with foreign forces to undermine Chinese rule in the territory.
The same law has been used to dismantle Hong Kong’s civil society, with publications such as Mr. Lai’s tabloid newspaper Apple Daily forced to close, opposition politicians jailed and human rights groups and organizations disbanded.
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On Sunday, Hong Kong’s Democratic Party, which has advocated for greater political freedoms since the territory was a British colony, passed a motion to disband. Like all opposition groups, the party had been blocked from recent tightly controlled elections for the territory’s legislature, and leaders said they were facing growing pressure to stop all activities.
“We have known success, and we have faced setbacks. Yet, as the times have shifted, we now, with deep regret, must bring this chapter to a close,” chairman Lo Kin-hei told reporters.
“After weathering 30 years of storms, the Democratic Party has come to the moment when the full stop must be written. Yet we believe that the convictions and perseverance of these three decades will leave their mark on Hong Kong’s history.”
Like Apple Daily, the Democratic Party was an icon of a now-lost past for Hong Kong, a place once characterized by boisterous political debate, frequent protests and an aggressive domestic press determined to hold officials to account.
The authorities have used Mr. Lai’s trial as an opportunity to rewrite that history. During Mr. Lai’s almost two months on the stand, prosecutors sought to paint him as a key instigator of the 2019 protests and a nefarious agent of the West.
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Following Monday’s verdict, China’s Office for Safeguarding National Security described Mr. Lai as “the main planner and participant in a series of anti-China and pro-chaos events in Hong Kong.”
It said he sought to foster a “colour revolution” in Hong Kong, as “an agent and pawn of external anti-China forces.”
In closing arguments in August, Mr. Lai’s legal team said his final act as a journalist had been to “speak truth to power” in his own defence.
“It is not wrong to support freedom of expression. It is not wrong to support human rights,” said lawyer Robert Pang. “Nor is it wrong to hope that the government would change its policies, whether through its own internal review or through suggestion or even pressure, whether from inside Hong Kong or out.”
They argued that the conspiracy case against Mr. Lai – which largely revolved around a campaign to lobby for international sanctions against Hong Kong and Chinese officials – involved stretching the law to be retroactive. His team added that the government had cast actions that were completely legal at the time as continuing beyond the time when the national security law criminalized them.
Sebastien Lai Sung-yan, son of jailed Hong Kong media mogul Jimmy Lai, in London Monday.HENRY NICHOLLS/AFP/Getty Images
Ms. Toh, the lead judge, said even after the implementation of the security law, Mr. Lai “never wavered in his intention to destabilize the government of the PRC.”
Mr. Lai’s “only intent, whether pre or post-[national security law], was to seek the downfall of the CCP, even though the ultimate cost was the sacrifice of the people of the PRC” and Hong Kong, Ms. Toh said.
Mr. Lai’s son Sebastien said ahead of Monday’s verdict he fully expected his father to be found guilty, and his focus was on securing some kind of compassionate release after conviction. The younger Mr. Lai has been lobbying Western politicians to take up his father’s case, including U.S. President Donald Trump, who earlier this year promised Washington would “do everything we can” to help.
Speaking to reporters in London on Monday, Sebastien denounced the result, saying Hong Kong’s “national security law has been moulded and weaponized against someone who essentially said stuff they didn’t like.”
“The U.K. government has to do more,” he said. “It’s time to put action behind words, and made my father’s release a precondition for improved ties.”