Lai: 'not guilty'

Next Digital founder Jimmy Lai Chee-ying pleaded not guilty to three national security charges at West Kowloon Magistrates' Court yesterday, with the prosecution accusing him of being a mastermind behind US sanctions on China and Hong Kong officials.

Lai, 76, in a navy suit jacket and a white shirt, smiled, waved and nodded to his family when being escorted to the courtroom.

He denied two counts of collusion with external elements endangering national security and one of reproducing seditious publications between July 1, 2020 and April 3, 2021.

A representative of Lai's three companies, Apple Daily, Apple Daily Printing, and AD Internet, also pleaded not guilty to one count involving seditious publications.

Deputy director of public prosecutions Anthony Chau Tin-hang said Lai and senior managers of the defunct Apple Daily, and UK-based pro-independent advocacy group Stand with Hong Kong Fight for Freedom had conspired to collude with foreign or extraterritorial forces.

Since June 2019, Chau said, Lai had met various overseas parties, including former US government officials, and discussed with them to impose sanctions, blockade or engage in other hostile activities against China and the SAR.

Americans had imposed sanctions on 42 Chinese and Hong Kong officials, he said.

After the launch of the national security law in 2020, Lai allegedly started a conspiracy with legal assistant Chan Tsz-wah and his private assistant Mark Simon, including calling on US, New Zealand, UK, Japan, Czech and Ireland to suspend extradition agreements with Hong Kong.

The prosecution said Simon had executed Lai's instructions to contact US personnel on his behalf.

Lai had continued to call on foreign governments to sanction Beijing and the SAR governments, it was said.

Chau said the prosecution will rely on the testimony of five accomplice witnesses, including then publisher Cheung Kim-hung, 60; former associate publisher Chan Pui-man, 52; and ex-editorial writer Yeung Ching-kee, 56, and then-Next Digital executive director Royston Chow Tat-kuen.

They will focus on daily operations of Apple Daily and prove the existence of the conspiracy, with Chau adding all witnesses said Lai masterminded the conspiracy.

A total of 161 examples of seditious articles were published to "pollute people's minds," Chau said.

Among the examples, 31 were published after the national security law came into effect on July 1, 2020, covering contents calling on the international community to sanction China and Hong Kong governments.

Chau also said Apple Daily was a widely circulated newspaper in Hong Kong and had a strong influence in print and digital forms, with a website available in Chinese and English.

Chau played various interview clips of Lai with foreign media before the enactment of national security law.

In them he had called repeatedly on foreign governments and Donald Trump, then the American president, to impose sanctions on China in a bid to force the Hong Kong government to drop the extradition bill.

The prosecution will continue to present its case today.

Representing Lai, senior counsel Robert Pang Yiu-hung argued in a new oral submission at the start of proceedings that the court has only the jurisdiction to deal with the alleged conspiracy crime in 10 days from June 14, 2021.

But his submission was dismissed by national security judges Esther Toh Lye-ping, Susana Maria D'Almada Remedios, and Alex Lee Wan-tang.

eunice.lam@singtaonewscorp.com