Lai trial sees first accomplice witness

Apple Daily's former publisher Cheung Kim-hung will testify in court today as the first accomplice prosecution witness.

Deputy director of public prosecutions Anthony Chau Tin-hang said it could take a week for the prosecution's direct examination of Cheung.

The defense also confirmed instructions from Lai that the prosecution can summon Cheung to testify first despite the absence of senior counsel Robert Pang Yiu-hung, leading counsel of the 76-year-old Lai's legal team of six.

Pang applied for a two-week absence last week. Barrister Steven Kwan Man-wai, also representing Lai, said Pang will return next Monday.

Cheung was one of six former Apple Daily executives charged with colluding with external elements to endanger national security. The six pleaded guilty in November 2022.

Chau told the court earlier that the prosecution will rely on the testimony of five accomplice witnesses - Cheung, former associate publisher Chan Pui-man, ex-editorial writer Yeung Ching-kee and then-Next Digital executive director Royston Chow Tat-kuen.

The prosecution will focus on the daily operations of Apple Daily and prove the existence of the alleged conspiracy, with Chau adding that all witnesses claim Lai was the mastermind.

The three national security judges, Esther Toh Lye-ping, Susana Maria D'Almada Remedios and Alex Lee Wan-tang, dismissed defense arguments on the admissibility of testimony by expert witness Wang Guiguo, chair professor of Chinese and comparative law at the City University of Hong Kong.

Wang prepared two reports in the past two years to identify the sanctions, blockade or hostile activities imposed by the United States against Beijing and Hong Kong senior officials and explain their impacts, consequences and time limit.

The defense disputed that Wang's reports were irrelevant to Lai's collusion charge, as they do not analyze the content of his request for foreign sanctions.

Kwan said relevant legislative procedures and executive orders from the US could not read Lai's state of mind at the time and that Wang never read the chat records on Lai's phone.

But judge Lee said it was unnecessary for an expert witness to read relevant chat records, pointing out that the court would have to learn and rule whether foreign countries' sanctions called for by Lai are the same as the "sanction" under Article 29 of the Hong Kong National Security Law.

Kwan also raised a new argument, alleging Wang included personal opinions in his supplementary statement on the stability of Hong Kong's role as an international financial and trade hub, following international sanctions and a blockade since 2019.

Toh said: "Professor Wang is not the court." She also commented that the defense moved the goalpost.

She added that all three judges were not experts in foreign law, prompting the prosecution to submit a report.

In a written ruling, the judges said that at this stage they were only concerned with admissibility rather than the weight of Wang's evidence.

eunice.lam@singtaonewscorp.com