Hong Kong court to rule on dismissal of media mogul Jimmy Lai’s sedition charge in national security trial on Friday
Hong Kong Free Press
A Hong Kong court is set to rule on whether the sedition charge laid against media mogul Jimmy Lai was pressed before a six-month statute of limitations had expired, after the defence argued in the closely-watched national security trial that the prosecution had been “out of time.”
The trial against the 76-year-old founder of the defunct pro-democracy tabloid Apple Daily entered its second day on Tuesday. Lai faces two counts of conspiring to collude with foreign forces under the Beijing-imposed national security law, as well as one count of conspiracy to publish “seditious” materials under a colonial-era sedition law.
By law, the statute of limitations for prosecuting sedition offences in Hong Kong is six months. The defence and the prosecution, however, disagree on what the six-month window is and when the prosecution began.
Defence lawyer Robert Pang continued his argument on Tuesday that the sedition charge should be dismissed because the prosecution had failed to lay the charge within the six-month window the prosecution was asserting.
According to the prosecution’s case, the period of the alleged conspiracy to publish seditious materials took place from April 1, 2019, and June 24, 2021, when Apple Daily ceased publication following a police raid and the arrest of top executives. That would put the six-month prosecution window from June 24 to December 24, 2021.
But Pang said that Lai was only taken to court on December 28, 2021, in relation to the sedition charge, four days outside of the window.
Pang also emphasised his argument from Monday, that the six-month prosecution window began on April 1, 2019 – when the first allegedly seditious article was published – and hence would have ended on October 1, 2019.
In response, prosecutor Anthony Chau said the prosecution procedures started earlier than Pang was arguing. They began on December 13, 2021, when the prosecution filed the charge to the court, he said.
Chau added that the defence argument that prosecution only begins when a defendant is brought to the court would make it “impracticable,” citing a situation where a defendant was not in Hong Kong.
Chau also said Pang’s assertion that the six-month time frame began on April 1, 2019, was “absurd,” as it would make the case “fragmented” and fail to reflect the overall criminality of the offence.
A conspiracy was by nature “a continuous offence,” Chau said, adding that the offence covered over 160 articles published during the alleged conspiracy period and formed a “single criminal enterprise.”
During his submission on Tuesday, Pang also said that it was as a matter of public interest for the prosecution to lay a charge within a time limit. “If someone publishes a seditious publication, it is in the public interests for it to be stopped,” Pang told the court.
“The prosecution must act quickly, it has six months [to lay a charge]… and it should do so,” he added.
Alex Lee, one of the three handpicked national security judges alongside Esther Toh and Susana D’Almada Remedios presiding over the trial, said that there was no disagreement that the charge was subject to a six-month time limit. Instead, the dispute was about “when time starts to run” for the prosecution period.
Lai has been detained for over three years since December 2020. He is currently serving a five years and nine months sentence in Stanley Prison, a maximum security facility, for a separate fraud case.
Verdict expected on Friday
Judge Toh adjourned the trial until Friday morning, when a verdict on the validity of the sedition charge will be handed down.
Tuesday’s hearing finished before lunch. Lai, wearing a grey suit jacket, waved at the public gallery as correctional officers escorted him out of the courtroom. The media tycoon’s family members including his wife Teresa Lai, his son Augustin, and daughter Claire were among the observers in the public gallery.
Similar to Monday, there was heavy police presence inside and outside West Kowloon Law Courts Building, where the trial is taking place. Uniformed and plainclothes police officers patrolled the court and its vicinity, while bomb-sniffing dogs were also on guard.
Interest, however, appeared to have waned compared to Monday, when members of the public and a large number of reporters queued overnight for a seat in the main courtroom. Around 40 members of the public were queuing for a ticket to enter the public gallery as of 8 am on Tuesday, according to local media reports. While the main courtroom was packed, the courtroom next to it being used as an extension – where the proceedings were being broadcast live – was half-empty when the trial began on 10 am.
Lai’s high-profile trial, seen globally as a bellwether for press freedom in Hong Kong, is expected to last 80 days. It was meant to begin last December but was delayed due to debate over whether Lai was permitted to hire a UK lawyer – King’s Counsel Timothy Owen – not licensed to practice in Hong Kong.
Beijing eventually issued its first interpretation of the national security law at the invitation of Chief Executive John Lee. The central government confirmed that the city’s leader and a national security committee had the power to decide if a foreign lawyer could participate in a case.
Beijing inserted national security legislation directly into Hong Kong’s mini-constitution in June 2020 following a year of pro-democracy protests and unrest. It criminalised subversion, secession, collusion with foreign forces and terrorist acts – broadly defined to include disruption to transport and other infrastructure. The move gave police sweeping new powers and led to hundreds of arrests amid new legal precedents, while dozens of civil society groups disappeared. The authorities say it restored stability and peace to the city, rejecting criticism from trade partners, the UN and NGOs.
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