Prosecution reads testimony of IT expert as Jimmy Lai trial enters eighth day

The prosecution read out the written testimony of an IT expert at West Kowloon Court on Tuesday as the national security trial for Next Digital founder Jimmy Lai Chee-ying entered its eighth day. 

The prosecution would have originally summoned Next’s former CEO Cheung Kim-hung to testify in court today, but defense counsel Robert Pang Yiu-hung is absent from the trial for the next two weeks due to an emergency. The court therefore proceeded to hear the written testimony of an IT expert who aided police investigation. 

The defense said they will apply to adjourn the trial for six to seven days if the prosecution decides to go on and summon Cheung to testify in court as before, so that Pang can cross-examine Cheung in person upon his return. 

The prosecution then read out the written testimony of Chow Kam-pui, an associate professor at the Department of Computer Science of the University of Hong Kong. 

Chow mentioned that he was requested to advise the police on the instant messaging apps and social media platforms involved in the case in March 2022, including WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, Facebook, Twitter (now X) and YouTube. 

Chow explained how the apps and platforms work as well as how to use them. He noted that he opened three accounts on Telegram for testing and results showed that all users can delete or edit sent messages. The message records on the recipient side will also be altered. 

The changes will leave a record on the app’s cloud server, but not if the users have activated the “Secret Chat” mode, Chow added. 

After reading the expert testimony, the prosecution will play 24 videos from Lai’s online program “Live Chat with Jimmy Lai”, about an hour and 11 minutes in length. 

Seventy-six-year-old Lai pleaded not guilty to three charges of sedition and collusion with foreign countries last Tuesday. 

The high-profile trial, presided over by national security judges Esther Toh Lye-ping, Susana Maria D'Almada Remedios, and Alex Lee Wan-tang without a jury, is expected to last for 80 days.