Hong Kong media tycoon convicted – as it happened

Taiwan has also condemned the guilty verdicts against Jimmy Lai and called for his immediate release.

“This ruling serves as a declaration to the world that Hong Kong’s freedoms, democracy, and judicial independence have been systematically eroded,” Taiwan’s China-policy making Mainland Affairs Council said in a statement quoted by Reuters.

Continuing the chorus of condemnation over the guilty verdicts for Jimmy Lai, the International Press Institute (IPI) said the conviction “shows how Hong Kong’s courts have been weaponised to crush independent journalism and voices”.

The IPI’s executive director, Scott Griffen, said in a statement:

Lai’s inhumane imprisonment also lays bare how far the Chinese authorities will go to silence independent information and ideas.

His unwavering commitment to press freedom — despite years of brutal conditions — has made him a powerful symbol for media communities worldwide. It is long past time for his inhumane suffering to end. He must be released.

In October the IPI named Lai a 2025 world press freedom hero.

Jimmy Lai went from child labourer to billionaire – and used his power and wealth to promote democracy, which ultimately pitted him against authorities in Beijing.

As Helen Davidson and Amy Hawkins write in this just-published account of his rise and fall, the guilty verdicts in the landmark trial were expected. Lai has long been a thorn in Beijing’s side and was a primary target of the most recent and definitive crackdown on Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement.

Lai’s trial was one of the last unfinished national security prosecutions of Hong Kong’s high-profile activists over their involvement in the 2019 protests. Hundreds of activists, lawyers and politicians have been pursued and jailed, or chased into exile. But few have captured global attention like Lai, whose life and career has developed in tangent with Hong Kong’s sputtering walk towards democracy, and then its fall.

“The trajectory of his life reflects the history of Hong Kong itself,” said one lawyer.

You can read the full story here:

Images have come in of a correctional services department vehicle thought to have been prepared to carry Jimmy Lai leaving the West Kowloon law courts after the guilty verdicts against him.

As mentioned, Hong Kong’s national security police chief, Steve Li Kwai-wah, has welcomed the verdicts, also saying the trial’s judges were “professional”.

Human Rights Watch has said Jimmy Lai’s conviction “on bogus charges after five years of solitary confinement is both cruel and a travesty of justice”.

The group’s Asia director, Elaine Pearson, said in a statement:

The Chinese government’s mistreatment of Jimmy Lai aims to silence everyone who dares to criticise the Communist party.

Foreign governments should respond to the travesty of Jimmy Lai’s trial by pressing for the quashing of the case and his immediate release.

The Chinese and Hong Kong governments should pay a cost for their unrelenting efforts to muzzle Hong Kong’s press.

Reporters Without Borders says it is outraged at Lai’s “unlawful conviction” and that it “only demonstrates the alarming deterioration of media freedom in the territory”.

A statement from the press freedom NGO continued:

It is not an individual who has been on trial – it is press freedom itself, and with this verdict that has been shattered.

The Apple Daily founder has embodied the courage of independent journalists in Hong Kong, and this verdict crushes any remaining space they have.

Democracies must finally act, and act fast: if they don’t, Lai will die in jail, and they will send a clear signal to the Chinese regime that it can spread its authoritarian model and violate international law, scot-free.

Hong Kong’s national security police chief has reportedly welcomed the guilty verdicts against Jimmy Lai.

More on this soon.

Police and government officials are now addressing the media outside the court after Jimmy Lai’s conviction on national security charges, as Helen Davidson has just posted on Bluesky.

Jimmy Lai is facing possible lifetime jail sentences after today’s verdicts.

As mentioned earlier, the media tycoon and pro-democracy figure had pleaded not guilty to two counts of “conspiracy to foreign collusion” under the security law as well as one count of “conspiracy to publish seditious publications”.

The Hong Kong high court has just found him guilty of all three counts after a trial that lasted for more than two years.

We’ll be bringing you reaction to the verdicts as it comes to hand.

The next court date is 12 January, as parties have an opportunity to appeal.

The date for sentencing is to be determined.

Representatives of the UK, the US and France are among the people at the court for today’s verdicts and are pictured here as they entered the building earlier.

The judge is reading the messages, giving the date they were sent. It’s a date before July 2020.

Toh says:

There is no doubt in our mind that the first defendant never wavered in his intention to destabilise the governance of the CCP, and despite the enactment of the NSL, he was intent on continuing though in a less explicit way.

A frequent criticism of the Hong Kong authorities’ national security prosecutions - including Lai’s – is that they at times appear to apply it retrospectively, even though it’s not supposed to be applied that way.

Judge Esther Toh has spent several minutes reading through messages from or about Lai and his top aide, Mark Simon, and noting Lai’s meetings with US officials and Hong Kong dissidents, much of which date from before the law was imposed.

Toh says a lot of the evidence demonstrates “the reach and influence” of Lai within the US government.

Those messages in the last post are from before the national security law was imposed. But judge Esther Toh is saying the meetings sought to arrange for US sanctions, blockade or other hostile activity against China and Hong Kong in relation to the proposed extradition bill which sparked the 2019 protests.

Toh is reading excerpts from messages about Lai and his close associate Mark Simon arranging meetings with US officials, including former secretary of state Mike Pompeo, former national security advisor John Bolton and other White House figures.

Toh says the evidence of Lai’s alleged co-conspirators (who testified against him in trial) was tested, and their evidence remains “solid and irrefutable”.

Judge Esther Toh described Lai’s actions as analogous to a US citizen asking for help from Russia to bring down the state of California.

The judge said:

The evidence plainly shows that [Lai] clearly conspired with senior management at Apple Daily and the corporate entities in counts one and two.

There is indisputable evidence that [Lai] conspired with the named conspirators in count three ... to request foreign countries to impose sanctions, blockade, or engage in other hostile activities against the PRC, HKSAR or both.

Helen Davidson is reporting live from the courtroom in Hong Kong.

Esther Toh is speaking first, asking there be “no disturbance within this courtroom” during the hearing, and for “decorum” to be observed and maintained after the judges rise.

The full reasons for the verdict are 855 pages long, she says.

The three high court judges have entered the courtroom and taken their seats.

The long-awaited verdicts in Jimmy Lai’s national security trial are one of the city’s most closely watched rulings since its return to Chinese rule in 1997.

The pro-democracy media tycoon and founder of the now-defunct Apple Daily founder has pleaded not guilty to two counts of “conspiracy to foreign collusion” under the security law, which carry a maximum penalty of life in prison, as well as one count of “conspiracy to publish seditious publications”.

As the Guardian’s Helen Davidson also details in this full report, the case has grown into a wedge between Beijing and many western nations, with Donald Trump reportedly calling for Lai’s release during a meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in October.

Lai turned 78 last week and once described himself as a “born rebel”. He loudly defied the Chinese Communist party for years, while amassing millions from his clothing and media empires.

He became a prime target after Beijing imposed the sweeping national security law on Hong Kong in 2020, a year after huge and sometimes violent pro-democracy protests.

Here’s the full report from Davidson, who’s in Hong Kong also covering today’s developments.

Here are some fresh photos coming in of the scene outside the building in the lead-up to the Jimmy Lai verdicts being handed down.

Earlier this month Jimmy Lai’s children voiced new alarm over the incarcerated tycoon’s health, describing his dramatic weight loss, teeth rotting and nails falling off.

The report quoted them saying that Lai – was is 78 and has diabetes – had been kept in solitary confinement without air conditioning in a jail where summer temperatures rise to 44C (111F).

“He has lost a very significant amount of weight, visibly, and he is a lot weaker than he was before,” said his daughter Claire Lai, who left Hong Kong after seeing her father several months ago.

His nails turn almost purple, grey and greenish before they fall off, and his teeth are getting rotten.

You can read that story here:

Our correspondent Helen Davidson has posted video footage on Bluesky of scenes outside the West Kowloon law courts ahead of the verdicts being handed down on Jimmy Lai.

As has become usual with these national security cases, there is a large police presence outside the West Kowloon district court.

It’s about two hours from the verdict hearing beginning, and there are officers in plain clothes and uniform everywhere, as well as a massive press pack. Smaller than I have seen before, however, is the queue for the general public.

The day Lai gave testimony, and big days for other cases like that of the Hong Kong 47, have drawn hundreds of people wanting to attend. But today there is perhaps fewer than 100. At least half of them were here last night, when I came by around 10pm.

Some passers-by alleged those people were paid by pro-Beijing groups to sit in the queue and reserve seats that might otherwise be taken by supporters of the defendants, or foreign diplomatic observers. I tried to ask them why they were here, but they all refused to speak to me, and hid behind umbrellas or blankets.

One man, Simon, said he wanted to “give some support to Jimmy Lai and his wife”.

“I believe this will be a bad result,” he said.

They want to put him in prison.

Simon didn’t stay overnight but was back again around 6am this morning. He and a friend are holding bright red apples, to represent the now-shuttered Apple Daily newspaper that Lai founded and which stands as his co-accused.

It’s now 8.35am in Hong Kong and its high court is set to begin delivering its verdict on the national security charges against Jimmy Lai at 10am (2am GMT).

The three judges delivering the ruling are Esther Toh, Alex Lee and Susana D’Almada Remedios.

If Lai is found guilty, the incarcerated media tycoon will probably be sentenced at a later date and can appeal against the verdict.