Jimmy Lai’s view Hong Kong would become like mainland China was conjecture: judges
Justices interject in fiery exchange with former media owner, who insists he was telling truth about predicted changes on live-streamed show
The 77-year-old has pleaded not guilty to two charges of conspiring to collude with foreign forces under the security law, and a third count of conspiracy to print and distribute seditious publications in breach of colonial-era legislation.
Tuesday’s hearing was originally slated to be the penultimate day of defence lawyers questioning Lai, but the former media owner’s lawyer Steven Kwan Man-wai earlier asked the panel of three judges for more time to wrap up his questions.
The founder of the now-defunct, opposition-friendly newspaper Apple Daily on Monday denied trying to circumvent the national security law through “indirect” appeals for sanctions from the West, but told the court he decided to continue to give interviews with “good” media outlets overseas regarding his political views after consulting his wife.
Lai also rejected allegations previously laid out in the trial that he intended to incite hatred through a July 2020 commentary, in which he attacked Beijing by citing rumours that his friends, political commentator Simon Lau Sai-leung and his wife, had been intimidated by an alleged agent of the Communist Party.
The former tabloid founder also delved into his interview with Lau on July 2, 2020, in which he had predicted that life in Hong Kong under the national security law would become an “intangible prison”.
Lai told the court on Monday he believed the new law would compel people to change the way they conducted themselves in public or “conceal” their actions.
