Hong Kong Court Overturns Jimmy Lais Fraud Conviction

A Hong Kong appeals court has overturned fraud convictions against Jimmy Lai, handing the former media mogul a rare legal victory even as he faces 20 years in prison on a separate national security charge that could keep him incarcerated for life.Lai, 78, an outspoken critic of China’s communist regime and founder of the now-defunct newspaper Apple Daily, has been widely seen as a symbol of Hong Kong’s diminishing press freedom and civil liberties. He has now spent more than 1,800 days in prison since his 2020 arrest.A lower court judge in December 2022 sentenced Lai to five years and nine months in prison and fined him HK$2 million (about $257,000 at the time), saying the defendant had breached a lease contract for his newspaper’s headquarters by concealing the operations of a private company, Dico Consultants, in the building. Lai’s co-defendant, Wong Wai-keung, was sentenced to 21 months in prison.On Feb. 26, Hong Kong Judges Jeremy Poon, Anthea Pang, and Derek Pang stated in the judgment that they allowed the appeal from Lai and Wong to proceed, as the lower court judge had “erred.”“In conclusion, we hold that Apple Daily Printing did not owe a duty to the Corporation to disclose its breach of the user restrictions or the non-alienation clauses occasioned by Dico’s occupation and use of the said Premises. With respect, the Judge erred,” the judgment reads.“His reasoning in concluding that the applicants were liable for the concealment as the prosecution contended is unsupportable. He erred in making those findings.”The judges added that the prosecution had “failed to prove beyond reasonable doubt” that Lai had “made false representation,” according to the judgment.“The Court of Appeal gave them leave to appeal against their conviction, allowed their appeals, quashed the convictions and set aside the sentences,” the judges wrote in a press summary of their judgment.Even with his fraud conviction and sentence overturned, Lai could still stay behind bars until 2042 if he serves the full 20-year sentence handed down earlier this month, according to Washington-based advocacy group Hong Kong Democracy Council.Lai was sentenced to 20 years in prison over two counts of “conspiracy to collude with foreign forces” under the Beijing-imposed national security law and one count of “sedition” under a colonial-era sedition law.In a statement responding to the latest court ruling, a spokesperson for the Hong Kong government said the city’s Department of Justice will study the judgment “thoroughly” before deciding whether to appeal.“Although the Court of Appeal considered that, in the factual context of this case, the breach in question did not reach the criminal conviction threshold for the offence of ‘fraud’, the objective fact remains that [Jimmy] Lai Chee-ying has exploited public resources for private use,” the spokesperson added.Sebastien Lai said the ruling didn’t change anything for his father.“He still has a sentence of 20 years in prison and has spent the last half a decade in solitary confinement in maximum security. The right thing is to release him immediately before it is too late,” the younger Lai told Reuters.Jimmy Lai’s daughter, Claire Lai, and Sebastien Lai have warned that their father could die in prison, citing a sharp decline in his health after more than five years in solitary confinement. According to the family, Jimmy Lai is suffering from retinal vein occlusion in his right eye, high blood pressure, heart palpitations, and progressive hearing loss.The two children have expressed hopes that U.S. President Donald Trump could secure the release of their father during his upcoming trip to China.The trip will last three days beginning on March 31, the White House has confirmed, during which Trump is scheduled meet Chinese leader Xi Jinping.Claire Lai was in attendance as a guest of House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) for Trump’s State of the Union address on Feb. 24. In a statement a day earlier, Smith said that he and his wife were “deeply inspired by her courageous and tenacious campaign to obtain the release of her father.”Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), vice chairman of the Senate Committee on Intelligence, said in an X post on Feb. 25 that Trump needs to bring up Jimmy Lai during his meeting with Xi.“Weeks after the sentencing of Hong Kong publisher and democracy advocate Jimmy Lai, Beijing wants the world to move on,” Warner wrote. “We shouldn’t. The President should raise his case when he next meets President Xi.”Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.