Pro-Democracy Hong Kong Media Mogul Convicted

A Hong Kong court handed down a guilty verdict in the landmark national security trial of Jimmy Lai, a media tycoon and pro-democracy activist whose case highlights shrinking tolerance for dissent in the city.

Officials in Hong Kong and mainland China had cast Lai, aged 78, as the mastermind of antigovernment demonstrations that engulfed the former British colony in 2019, posing a serious challenge to Beijing’s authority.

Prosecutors said he colluded with foreign governments, including the United States, to target China and Hong Kong with sanctions.

Lai pleaded not guilty to two counts of “conspiracy to collude with foreign forces,” an offense that can be punished by up to life in prison, and not guilty to a count of conspiracy to publish seditious material in Apple Daily, the now-shuttered Chinese-language newspaper he founded in 1995. On Monday, a court found him guilty on all three counts.

The court has set four days aside for a hearing over his sentence starting Jan. 12 and it will then be announced “as soon as possible,” said Esther Toh, one of three judges presiding over the hearing.

Hong Kong’s “one country two systems” legal framework is meant to guarantee the territory some autonomy from Beijing and freedom of speech until 2047. But critics say the case shows how the framework has been undercut by two national security laws — one imposed by Beijing in 2020, the other introduced by the Hong Kong government last year — that were responses to the protests.

In 2022, a Hong Kong court sentenced Lai to more than five years in prison for fraud, saying he had violated the terms of a lease agreement related to Apple Daily, a persistent critic of Beijing.

Lai’s family says his health has been deteriorating as a result of his imprisonment in solitary confinement. Hong Kong officials say he had requested to be held there, and that he is receiving “adequate and comprehensive” medical care.