Hong Kong prosecutors have cited emails sent between pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai and former US officials in a high-profile national security trial that could land the Apple Daily founder life in prison if convicted.
Three handpicked national security judges on Monday heard prosecutors recite a 61-page document containing facts admitted by 76-year-old Lai, who pleaded not guilty to conspiring to collude with foreign forces and publishing “seditious” materials.
He was charged alongside three companies linked to the now-defunct newspaper he founded in 1995: Apple Daily Limited, Apple Daily Printing Limited, and AD Internet Limited. The companies also denied the charges.
After Lai’s arrest in August 2020, Hong Kong police found email records between Lai and ex-US deputy secretary for defence Paul Wolfowitz and Jack Keane, who had served as the vice chief of staff of the US army, prosecutor Ivan Cheung told High Court judges Esther Toh, Susana D’Almada Remedios and Alex Lee.
The media mogul also communicated with columnist for The Wall Street Journal Bill McGurn and former US Department of State adviser Christian Whiton, the prosecutor said.
The admitted facts covered communications among former senior Apple Daily executives involved in the case, including ex-associate publisher Chan Pui-man, ex-editor-in-chief of the English news section Fung Wai-kong, and ex-editorial writer Yeung Ching-kee. They were among six former Apple Daily staff who pleaded guilty to taking part in a conspiracy to commit collusion in November 2022.
Chan’s WhatsApp records included conversations with Lai’s aide Mark Simon and Hong Kong Watch co-founder and CEO Benedict Rogers.
The media tycoon, one of the highest-profile people charged under the security legislation, has been detained since December 2020. He is currently serving a five year and nine month sentence in Stanley Prison, a maximum security facility, for a separate fraud case.
Dressed in a brown leather jacket, Lai nodded and smiled at family and friends in the public gallery. Among those who attended Monday’s proceedings were his wife, his children, Cardinal Joseph Zen, Reverend Robert Sirico and a representative from the British Consulate.
Lead counsel absent
Senior Counsel Robert Pang, Lai’s lead defence counsel, was absent from court on Monday. He will skip the closely-watched trial for two weeks due to personal reasons, his fellow counsel Steven Kwan informed the judges on Monday.
The prosecution indicated that they would present evidence from 14 witnesses, including three ex-Apple Daily senior executives who decided to testify against their former employer. Only seven witnesses would testify in court, while the prosecutors would read out statements from other witnesses, the court heard.
King’s Counsel Marc Corlett from New Zealand, who was admitted to the Hong Kong Bar in 2020 and was another of Lai’s representatives, applied for 24 videos, with an estimated combined duration of at least 35 hours, to be played in court.
Judge Lee told the prosecution that any video evidence must be played in full to avoid things being “taken out of context.”
“You can’t take and select parts,” he said.
The court ordered the prosecution and defence to work out the arrangement for the videos to be played in court. The hearing will resume on Tuesday morning.
Eight more individuals would be called to the stand for the defence to cross-examine, the prosecution said.
Police maintained a heavy security presence around the West Kowloon Law Courts Building on Monday, where the mega courtroom was used by the High Court for Lai’s case to accommodate a large number of legal representatives, journalists and members of the public.
Anti-terrorism officers were on patrol, while a police dog was also deployed to guard the courthouse entrance.
Beijing inserted national security legislation directly into Hong Kong’s mini-constitution in June 2020 following a year of pro-democracy protests and unrest. It criminalised subversion, secession, collusion with foreign forces and terrorist acts – broadly defined to include disruption to transport and other infrastructure. The move gave police sweeping new powers and led to hundreds of arrests amid new legal precedents, while dozens of civil society groups disappeared. The authorities say it restored stability and peace to the city, rejecting criticism from trade partners, the UN and NGOs.
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