By Jessie Pang and James Pomfret
HONG KONG, November 20 (Reuters) – Hong Kong media tycoon and pro-democracy advocate Jimmy Lai, 76, testified in court for the first time on Wednesday in his landmark national security trial, accused of endangering China’s national security by colluding with foreign forces.
Lai was first arrested, under the national security law in August 2020, and has spent much of the time since in prison. He also faces separate sedition charges linked to his newspaper.
The prosecution has accused Lai of alleged collusion with foreign forces, which it says included meetings with U.S. officials in Washington during the presidency of Donald Trump, calling for sanctions against Chinese and Hong Kong officials.
Lai has pleaded not guilty to two charges of conspiracy to collude with foreign forces and a charge of conspiracy to publish seditious material.
WHY DOES IT MATTER?
The trial is widely seen as a landmark national security case after Beijing imposed sweeping security laws on Hong Kong in 2020 following months of pro-democracy protests in 2019.
Lai, a longstanding critic of the Chinese Communist Party, is one of the most high profile figures to face prosecution under the law. Diplomats are actively observing the court hearings in person with this case seen as a key test for Hong Kong’s judicial independence.
Hong Kong’s former colonial ruler Britain and the United States have condemned the trial and have called for Lai’s immediate release. Hong Kong officials say Lai will receive a fair trial.
WHAT IS THE PROSECUTION’S CASE?
Prosecutor Anthony Chau described Lai as a “radical” and alleged he was at the centre of conspiracies to collude with foreign forces and publish seditious material in his Apple Daily newspaper.
Chau alleged that Lai used “the guise of fighting for freedom and democracy” to request that foreign countries, in particular the United States, impose sanctions or engage in other hostile activities against Hong Kong and China.
The court heard that one example of Lai’s alleged collusion was July 2019 meetings he held with U.S. President Donald Trump’s then vice president Mike Pence and secretary of state Mike Pompeo at a time when Hong Kong’s mass pro-democracy and pro-democracy protests were intensifying.
Lai said in giving his first court testimony on Wednesday that he had never sought to influence the foreign policy of other countries, such as the U.S., towards China and Hong Kong.
“I would not dare to ask the vice president (Pence) to do anything. I would just relay to him what happened in Hong Kong when he asked me,” Lai told the Hong Kong court.
WHO IS THE PROSECUTION LINKING WITH LAI?
The prosecution listed agents and intermediaries of Lai, including former U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, former U.S. Consul General to Hong Kong James Cunningham, and founder of the Hong Kong Watch rights group Benedict Rogers. Commenting from outside Hong Kong, Cunningham and Rogers said Lai’s interactions were normal, legal activity.
Prosecutors also said they had identified a syndicate led by Lai, which they said included activists, his aide, rights campaigners, a Japanese congresswoman and a U.S. financier.
The prosecution case says these people contacted the U.S., Britain, New Zealand, Australia, Japan, Czech Republic, Portugal and Ireland to impose sanctions or take other hostile actions against Hong Kong and China.
Prosecutors described Lai as “the mastermind and financial supporter at the highest level command of the syndicate”.
Lai, however, said he had never donated any money to political parties overseas or in Taiwan. He added that he had only donated money to U.S. thinktanks and religious groups.
One count of collusion said Lai had links to a group the prosecution named as “Stand With Hong Kong Fight For Freedom” (SWHK), which it said lobbied countries for sanctions on China and Hong Kong.
Mark Simon, Lai’s aide and a U.S. citizen, executed his instructions and vetted requests for financial support, according to prosecutors.
But Andy Li, a key prosecution witness linked to SWHK, who had been jailed for seven months in a Chinese prison before the trial, said under cross examination on April 10 that he had never met nor contacted Lai, and had “never” received money from Lai nor from entities he believed were associated with Lai.
Prosecutors also accused Lai of using Apple Daily as a platform to conspire with three of its subsidiaries, six former executives linked to the newspaper, and staff members Mark Simon and others to collude with foreign forces.
Lai, however, said he rarely issued instructions or directions on coverage to the newsroom.
Cheung Kim-hung, the former CEO of Apple Daily’s parent company Next Digital, told the court he had been instructed by Lai to call people to join protests in 2019, and to push for sanctions against Hong Kong and Chinese officials. Cheung denied being asked by the police to become a prosecution witness while remanded in custody.
(Reporting by Jessie Pang, James Pomfret, Edward Cho, Dorothy Kam and Greg Torode; Editing by Michael Perry)
