A motorcade carries media mogul Jimmy Lai, founder of Apple Daily, back to Lai Chi Kok Reception Centre after the first day of his national security trial, in Hong Kong, on Dec. 18.TYRONE SIU/Reuters
More than three years after he was arrested on national-security charges, Hong Kong publisher and pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai finally went on trial Monday, the beginning of a marathon hearing expected to last well into 2024.
Mr. Lai, who recently turned 76 behind bars, appeared thinner and frailer than before his arrest, but in good spirits, smiling and waving to supporters in the public gallery. He is charged with colluding with foreign forces to endanger national security and conspiring with others to publish seditious publications. He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.
Canada, the United States and Britain have all called for his release, condemning his prosecution as an attack on dissent and freedom of the press.
The proceedings got off to a slow start Monday, with Mr. Lai’s team arguing that prosecutors had waited too long to charge him under Hong Kong’s colonial-era sedition law and therefore that part of the case should be thrown out. Many spectators did not return after lunch, after an hours-long back and forth between defence lawyers and judges over various dates and legal definitions.
In his introductory remarks, barrister Robert Pang, representing Mr. Lai, said the trial concerned a fundamental right, “that of freedom of the press.”
“When fundamental rights are engaged, any protections must be interpreted generously in favour of Mr. Lai and narrowly against the prosecution,” he said.
Mr. Pang did not address the main gist of the case: the charges under the national-security law. Imposed on Hong Kong by Beijing in 2020, it bans secession, subversion and collusion with foreign forces and has been used to drive a sweeping crackdown against the pro-democracy opposition. Hong Kong security chief Chris Tang recently noted that prosecutions under the law have a 100-per-cent conviction rate.
The case against Mr. Lai, a British citizen whose Apple Daily newspaper was long a thorn in the side of the Hong Kong and Chinese governments, is the most high-profile national-security trial yet, along with the mass prosecution of the “Hong Kong 47,” a group of opposition lawmakers and activists charged with collusion over a primary election held in 2020.
Beyond jailing a prominent opponent, the authorities seem determined to use the case against Mr. Lai to put forward an alternative narrative of the mass unrest in 2019 that led to the imposition of the security law, casting the newspaper publisher not as a mere participant but a key cog in a foreign-led conspiracy to plunge Hong Kong into chaos.
Hundreds of thousands took to the streets in mid-2019 to protest a proposed extradition law with China, only to be met by a heavy police crackdown, which led to further unrest as the movement’s demands grew to become calls for greater democracy and autonomy for Hong Kong.
Throughout the unrest, Apple Daily cheered on the protests, as its proprietor leaned on contacts in Washington to lobby for sanctions against Hong Kong and Chinese officials.
But while Mr. Lai likely played a key role in influencing the Trump administration’s response to the protests, his sway back home was never as great as either his supporters or detractors made it out to be. Just as Rupert Murdoch – whose papers were an inspiration for Apple Daily – more often than not backed politicians already on the way to victory, Mr. Lai’s paper reflected the political mood in Hong Kong more than it ever shaped it.
If Apple Daily had a constituency, it was the older, peaceful marchers who thronged the streets early in the unrest, not the black-clad young people throwing Molotov cocktails whose calls for Hong Kong independence so alarmed Beijing that it threw out any pretense of autonomy in the territory, bypassing the legislature to impose the national-security law via a constitutional backdoor. Many younger protesters saw figures such as Mr. Lai as out of touch, emblematic of a pro-democracy movement that failed to hold Beijing to the promises it made prior to Hong Kong’s 1997 handover to Chinese rule.
At the height of the protests, Chinese state media accused Mr. Lai of being one of a “Gang of Four” leading the movement, along with several other older activists. But what was notable during that time was just how little sway traditional pro-democracy lawmakers and opposition figures had over the leaderless, often unpredictable movement.
Speaking last week, Chinese Foreign Affairs Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said that “it is public knowledge that Jimmy Lai is one of the most notorious anti-China elements bent on destabilizing Hong Kong and a mastermind of the riots that took place” in 2019. “He blatantly colluded with external forces to undermine China’s national security and is responsible for numerous egregious acts.”
Mr. Lai’s case is being heard by a panel of three national-security judges – Esther Toh, Alex Lee and Susana D’Almada Remedios – hand-picked by Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee.
Numerous former allies and employees of Mr. Lai are expected to testify against him, and the tycoon said soon after his arrest that he would not blame anyone who did so, encouraging fellow defendants to do anything that might reduce their own sentences.
Initial hearings are set to last at least 80 days and could face delays owing to the Christmas and Chinese New Year holidays. A final verdict will likely take even longer, with Mr. Lai’s team sure to appeal his case all the way up to Hong Kong’s Court of Final Appeal, possibly on some of the very procedural issues raised Monday.
Regardless of how long the case takes, Caoilfhionn Gallagher, a Britain-based lawyer leading Mr. Lai’s international legal team, said the defence has little hope of victory, calling it a “sham trial.”
“We all know this is only going one way and it’s leading towards a conviction and likely a very high sentence,” she said.
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