A Hong Kong appellate court on Thursday overturned fraud convictions against the media mogul Jimmy Lai, a rare victory in the prominent pro-democracy activist’s legal battles.
Lai, 78, an outspoken critic of China’s ruling Communist party who founded the now defunct Apple Daily, will stay in prison because weeks ago he was sentenced to 20 years after being convicted in another case brought under a China-imposed national security law.
It is more than five years since he was arrested under the law, which was used in a years–long crackdown on many of Hong Kong’s leading activists.
Lai’s plight has evoked grief over the loss of press freedom in the city and prompted an international outcry, though the city’s authorities insist his case had nothing to do with media independence.
The conviction that was overturned on Thursday was from an earlier fraud case in which prosecutors alleged that a consultancy firm controlled by Lai had used office space that his media business rented for publication and printing purposes.
Lai was sentenced to five years and nine months in prison in 2022 after being found guilty of two fraud charges.
A lower court judge found that Lai and his co-defendant Wong Wai-keung had concealed that the firm was occupying space and violated lease agreement, saying he had used his media organisation as a protective shield. He also fined Lai 2m Hong Kong dollars ($257,000).
But judges at the higher court ruled the prosecution had failed to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the defendants had made false representations, throwing out both convictions.
Neither defendant appeared in court.
The ruling could slightly reduce Lai’s total prison time. The judges handling Lai’s national security case allowed the two sentences to be served concurrently for only two years, with the other 18 years to be added after the fraud sentence.
The lengthy sentence has raised concerns that he could spend the rest of his life in prison.
Lai’s children have expressed hope that Donald Trump, who has said he wanted to secure their father’s release, could help do so during an upcoming visit to Beijing. The White House has confirmed that Trump will travel to China on 31 March through 2 April to meet the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping.
The UK foreign secretary, Yvette Cooper, has said Lai, a British citizen, was sentenced for exercising his right to freedom of expression and called on the Hong Kong authorities to release him on humanitarian grounds.
Chinese and Hong Kong authorities have defended Lai’s sentencing in the national security case – the harshest penalty handed down for national security offences in Hong Kong – saying it reflected the spirit of the rule of law. They also insisted the security law is necessary for the city’s stability.
Separately, a Hong Kong court on Thursday sentenced the father of a wanted pro-democracy activist to eight months in prison under the city’s national security law after he attempted to terminate her insurance policy and withdraw the funds.
Kwok Yin-sang, 69, was found guilty earlier this month of “attempting to deal with, directly or indirectly, any funds or other financial assets or economic resources” belonging to an “absconder” under the city’s national security law.
He is the first person in the city to be charged and convicted with the offence. He had pleaded not guilty and did not testify at the trial.
His daughter, Anna Kwok, helps lead the Washington-based advocacy group Hong Kong Democracy Council, and is one of 34 overseas activists wanted by Hong Kong national security police.
In Washington, before her father’s sentence was handed down, Anna Kwok told Reuters she found it “utterly despicable” that the Hong Kong government was going after her father.
He was accused of trying to withdraw funds totalling HK$88,609 from an education savings insurance policy he bought for her when she was almost two years old.
The acting principal magistrate Cheng Lim-chi said since Anna Kwok was a fugitive, directly or indirectly handling her insurance policy is illegal.
With Associated Press and Reuters
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