Hong Kong: A Hong Kong court on Saturday sentenced jailed media mogul Jimmy Lai to five years and nine months in prison for fraud, in the latest legal challenge against the pro-democracy tycoon.
Besides, Lai was also fined 2M Hong Kong dollars ($257,000) and disqualified as a company director for eight years.
Lai was found to have breached the terms of lease for the headquarters of his now defunct Apple Daily newspaper after concealing the operation of a consultancy that provided corporate secretarial services to private firms Lai controlled.
Wong Wai Keung, the director of administration of Apple Daily’s parent company Next Digital and a co-defendant, was sentenced to 21 months in jail.
In October, Lai and Wong were both convicted of fraud by the same court. Both pleaded not guilty.
Lai, who has been remanded in custody for almost two years, is also facing a trial under Hong Kong’s sweeping national security law.
Since the security law was imposed by Beijing in 2020, in response to massive anti-government protests, authorities have cracked down on dissent.
Activists, protesters and journalists have been jailed, civil society crippled, and a number of independent news outlets shuttered.
Lai, 74, is one of the most high-profile critics of Beijing charged under the law and faces a maximum sentence of life in prison on charges of colluding with foreign forces. He also faces one charge under a colonial-era sedition law, and was sentenced to 13 months in prison in 2021 for participating in an unauthorized protest.
His pro-democracy tabloid Apple Daily was among the newspapers forced to shut down since the implementation of the law, after police raided the newsroom and authorities froze its assets.
Hong Kong, a former British colony that was handed over to Chinese rule in 1997, continues to use the common law system it inherited from Britain.
