Former Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai has been found guilty on two national security charges and a lesser sedition charge, in a landmark two-year trial widely viewed as a measure of the city's shrinking freedoms under Beijing's rule.
Self-made billionaire Lai, 78, is one of the highest-profile critics of Beijing charged under the sweeping security law imposed on the semi-autonomous city in 2020 following months of huge and sometimes violent pro-democracy protests.
Lai founded Apple Daily, a fiercely pro-democracy tabloid newspaper known for its blistering broadsides against the Chinese Communist Party until its forced closure in 2021.
He now faces possible life in prison.
In delivering the verdict Monday, judges said there was "no doubt (Lai) had harbored his resentment and hatred toward the PRC (People's Republic of China) for many of his adult years."
They pointed to Lai's lobbying of US politicians during President Donald Trump's first term as evidence of sedition and colluding with foreign forces, including his meetings with then-Vice President Mike Pence, then-State Secretary Mike Pompeo, and attempts to meet Trump himself.
"We are satisfied (Lai) was the mastermind in the conspiracies" laid out in all three charges, the judges concluded. They added that the evidence showed Lai's "only intent … was to seek the downfall of the (Chinese Communist Party)."
The judges said they would announce the date of his sentencing at a later point. Collusion is punishable by life imprisonment under the security law.
The judges had earlier warned everyone inside to maintain "absolute silence" as their verdict was read out.
Lai appeared calm throughout, greeting his wife and son at the start with a wave. He did not respond when the verdict came down but took off his glasses and wiped his face before he was led out of the courtroom.
Throughout his trial, prosecutors accused Lai of using his Apple Daily newspaper to call for sanctions against Hong Kong and China during the protests that roiled the financial hub in 2019, and after the law was introduced the following year. Lai pleaded not guilty to all three charges.
He was arrested under the national security law in late 2020, and has spent more than 1,800 days in a maximum-security prison, much of it in solitary confinement. In 2022, he was sentenced to five years and nine months in prison on unrelated charges of fraud.
His case has been closely watched around the world – including by US President Donald Trump, who had previously vowed to "get him out."
This is a developing story.
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