Pro-democracy publisher Lai found guilty on fraud charges
Pro-democracy Hong Kong publisher Jimmy Lai was found guilty on Tuesday on two fraud charges related to lease violations, the latest in a series of prosecutions apparently aimed at punishing him for his past activism.
Lai was arrested during a crackdown on the pro-democracy movement following widespread protests in 2019 and under the citys sweeping Beijing-imposed National Security Law. He is already serving a 20-month sentence for his role in unauthorised assemblies.
His media company, Next Digital, published the now-shuttered Apple Daily, Hong Kongs last pro-democracy newspaper.
Lai also faces collusion charges under the National Security Law and a separate sedition charge. His former colleague, Wong Wai-keung, was also convicted on Tuesday on a single charge of fraud.
Lai and two former executives at his company were charged with fraud for subletting part of the office space to a secretarial firm, which was also controlled by Lai, between 2016 and 2020.
Their move allegedly violated lease agreements with the Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corp. The second fraud count was for letting the same firm use the media outlets office space in alleged breach of lease agreements from 1998 and 2015.
District Court Judge Stanley Chan Kwong-chi said the firms business did not conform with what was stipulated in the lease agreements, and ruled that Lai had hidden the fact that the company was occupying space in the building.
He said he did not believe Lai had forgotten the business was using the office.
One of the executives, Royston Chow, made a deal earlier this year to help with Lais and Wongs prosecution in exchange for exemption from criminal liability.
Lawyers for Lai are asking the United Nations to investigate his imprisonment and multiple criminal charges as legal harassment to punish him for speaking out.
Armed with the National Security Law, prosecutors have brought cases against people for clapping in court, sentenced five speech therapists to nearly two years in prison for their role in the publication of childrens books deemed seditious, and put on trial a 90-year-old Catholic cardinal and five others accused of failing to register a now-defunct fund set up to assist people arrested in the mass anti-government protests three years ago.
That has damaged faith in the future of the bustling bastion of finance, with increasing numbers of young professionals responding to the shrinking freedoms by moving abroad.
Electoral reforms have ensured that only those deemed to be patriots by Beijing serve in the citys legislature. China has installed John Lee, a career security official, as the citys new chief executive.
Separately, a mainland Chinese man was arrested for allegedly posting three signs carrying seditious words at the protest zone of the citys legislative complex on October 15, police said on Tuesday.
Chinas twice-a-decade Communist Party congress began the next day.
Some wordings on the posters, which were generally about COVID-19 restrictions, were intended to incite others to hate or despise the central government or leaders of the central government, said Lo Yin-lam, chief inspector of Hong Kong Islands regional public order event investigation team. Lo did not elaborate on the wordings that had been used.
Local newspaper Ming Pao said the content of the posters was linked to a protest at Beijings Sitong Bridge, where someone hung banners calling for freedom and not COVID-19 lockdowns days before the congress opened.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by The Federal staff and is auto-published from a syndicated feed.)