Jimmy Lai’s (黎智英) trial began in December 2023 and was expected to last 80 days. It finally did end, 619 days later, on September 28. At the time, the South China Morning Post predicted that a verdict would be handed down by mid-November. Now that date has passed.
Earlier this month, Caoilfhionn Gallagher, an attorney who has been leading an international legal campaign calling for Lai’s release, told The Nation that the delays are a tactic aimed at slowing her campaign’s momentum.
Hong Kong authorities charged Lai, founder of the now-defunct pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily, in December 2020 with two counts of “conspiracy to commit collusion with foreign countries or external elements,” and one count of “collusion with foreign countries or external elements.” He is the most prominent figure to date to be charged under the national security law, which Beijing has used to quash dissent in Hong Kong, a city long seen as a bastion of press freedom.
Since his arrest, Lai has been held in solitary confinement at the maximum security Stanley Prison in Hong Kong, where he has lost a significant amount of weight. Lai is 77, suffers from diabetes and is facing a maximum punishment of life in prison.
In 2022, Lai was sentenced to five years and nine months in prison for allegedly violating the terms of his lease on a building that served as the headquarters for his media company, Next Digital, in Hong Kong. Lai’s lawyers argued an appeal of that decision earlier this year. That appeal has yet to be resolved as well.
During their meeting in Busan, South Korea, last month, U.S. President Donald Trump reportedly raised Lai’s situation with Xi Jinping (習近平), telling the Chinese leader that releasing him would be good for U.S.-China relations and positive for China’s reputation on the global stage.
Early this fall, Eric Yan-ho Lai (黎恩灝), research fellow for Asian law at the Georgetown University Law Center, told Domino Theory in an email that the authorities in Hong Kong have several legal tools at their disposal that would allow them to release Lai early. “In all circumstances, there are ways of giving Lai an early release that conform to the principles of rule of law and judicial independence in Hong Kong,” he said.
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