Hong Kong’s High Court has sentenced media tycoon Jimmy Lai to 20 years in prison, in the most high-profile national security case in Beijing’s crackdown on the territory.
Lai, a 78-year-old billionaire media entrepreneur, was a supporter of the pro-democracy movement that rocked Hong Kong in 2019, and has long been a staunch critic of China.
In December, Lai was convicted on two counts of conspiring to collude with a foreign power and one count of conspiring to publish seditious materials through his media group, the now-closed pro-democracy tabloid Apple Daily.
The court said on Monday that it had “no doubt whatsoever” that the collusion charges “fall within the category of offences of a ‘grave nature’”. It added that the sedition charge also fell within “the most serious category of its type”.
Lai was first arrested in 2020 and has already spent five years in detention. He was previously sentenced to a series of jail terms over his alleged involvement in a banned vigil in 2020 to mark the anniversary of the bloody suppression of protests in Tiananmen Square and “unauthorised” anti-government protests, as well as for alleged fraud at his media group Next Media.
Significance of Sentencing
The sentence will dash hopes that US President Donald Trump, who vowed “100 per cent” to free Lai in the run-up to the 2024 presidential election, or UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who, according to Downing Street officials, raised his case on a trip to Beijing last month, would be able to secure an earlier release. Lai is a British citizen.
UK foreign secretary Yvette Cooper said in a statement that 20 years was “tantamount to a life sentence” for Lai. She called on authorities to “end his appalling ordeal and release him on humanitarian grounds”.
Lai can appeal against the sentence, though his legal team has not said whether he will do so. He is diabetic and suffers from heart palpitations. His family and international legal team have said that he risks dying in prison, given his health condition.
In a statement, Sebastien Lai, Jimmy Lai’s son, said: “Sentencing my father to this draconian prison sentence is devastating for our family and life-threatening for my father. It signifies the total destruction of the Hong Kong legal system and the end of justice.”
