Lai's collusion trial due later this year

Wallis Wang

Media tycoon Jimmy Lai Chee-ying will stand trial in High Court later this year on national security charges for colluding with foreign forces.

Codefendants Andy Li Yu-hin, 30 - one of the "12 fugitives" - and legal assistant Chan Tsz-wah, 29, earlier pleaded guilty to conspiring to collude with foreign forces. Their trial is on September 16.

The court has heard that Li and Chan colluded with Lai and his aide Mark Simon, who is now in exile in the United States, calling on foreign countries and organizations to impose sanctions on officials of Hong Kong and China.

The assistant director of public prosecutions, Ivan Cheung Cheuk-kan, told judge Alex Lee Wan-tang yesterday that Lai's trial will be mentioned in West Kowloon Magistrates' Courts on May 17 and it will be later transferred to the High Court.

A separate case against Lai and Wong Wai-keung, administrative director of defunct media company Next Digital, began before District Court judge Stanley Chan Kwong-chi yesterday.

Lai, 74, and Wong, 60, had pleaded not guilty to fraud for allowing a consultancy company to use the group's headquarters, breaching a tenancy agreement with Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks.

The lease signed between Next Digital and HKSTP in 1995 said its building could be used only for the printing of newspapers and magazines.

However, Dico Consultants, which was founded by Lai and provided company secretarial services, was found to have operated in the building from 1998.

wallis.wang@singtaonewscorp.com