Hong Kong media mogul Jimmy Lai pleads not guilty to national security, sedition charges

Hong Kong Free Press

Hong Kong media mogul Jimmy Lai has formally pleaded not guilty to conspiring to collude with foreign forces and publishing “seditious” materials in his closely-watched national security trial.

Hong Kong pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai arrives at the Court of Final Appeal in Hong Kong on December 31, 2020. Photo: Isaac Lawrence/AFP.

Wearing a dark-coloured jacket and a white shirt, the 76-year-old founder of pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily, addressed the court for the first time on Tuesday since the trial began on December 18.

“Not guilty,” Lai said, speaking clearly from the defendant’s dock at the West Kowloon Law Courts Building as a clerk read out the three charges. He stands accused of two counts of conspiring to collude with foreign forces under the Beijing-imposed national security law and one count of publishing “seditious” publications.

He faces up to life in prison if convicted.

The pro-democracy figure, one of the highest-profile people charged under the security legislation, has been detained since December 2020. Lai is currently serving a five years and nine months sentence in Stanley Prison, a maximum security facility, for a separate fraud case.

Lai’s trial resumed on Tuesday following a break over the Christmas and New Year period.

Three companies linked to Apple Daily – Apple Daily Limited, Apple Daily Printing Limited, and AD Internet Limited – stand accused of sedition and one count of conspiring to collude with foreign forces. The lawyer representing the companies also pleaded not guilty on Tuesday.

Lai’s high-profile trial, seen globally as a bellwether for press freedom in Hong Kong, is expected to last 80 days.

Representatives from international press freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) were among those present on the first day of the trial. In a statement, the watchdog said the “world was watching and will not turn a blind eye to a miscarriage of justice.”

The government, however, said in a statement on Monday that law enforcement actions were based on evidence and had “nothing to do with freedom of the press, or the background of any person or organisation.”