Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai found guilty under national security law

After two years of trial, Lai is found guilty of colluding with foreign forces

Originally published on Global Voices

This article was first published in Hong Kong Free Press on December 15, 2025. An edited version is republished on Global Voices under a content partnership agreement.

Hong Kong media mogul Jimmy Lai has been found guilty of collusion and sedition in his national security trial.  The maximum sentence for collusion is life imprisonment.

Judges Alex Lee, Esther Toh, and Susana D’Almada Remedios delivered the guilty verdict on Monday, December 15, at the West Kowloon Law Courts Building.

Lai, who turned 78 behind bars earlier in December, was found guilty of two counts of conspiring to collude with foreign forces under the Beijing-imposed national security law, and a third count of sedition under colonial-era legislation.

The judges also convicted Lai’s companies — Apple Daily Ltd, Apple Daily Printing Ltd, and AD Internet Ltd — of conspiring to publish seditious publications and to commit foreign collusion.

A four-day mitigation hearing will be held on January 12, the court said.

Lai, wearing thick-rimmed glasses, a green jumper, and a beige jacket, gazed at the bench with his arms crossed as the judges delivered the guilty verdict.

The tycoon smiled and waved to the public gallery, where his wife Teresa, their son Lai Shun‑yan, and Cardinal Joseph Zen were seated, before he was led away by guards.

The guilty verdict comes two years after the media tycoon was put on trial, accused of using his now-shuttered independent newspaper, Apple Daily, to lobby foreign nations to impose sanctions, blockades, or other hostile activities against China and Hong Kong.

The media mogul also stood accused of stoking hatred against the authorities in Beijing and Hong Kong through 161 op-eds he allegedly wrote and published in his tabloid. Since he was detained in December 2020, the mogul has been in jail for more than 1,800 days.

The marathon trial began in December 2023, with closing arguments concluding in August 2025, after more than 150 working days. The media tycoon faces up to life in prison.

A diagram included in the annex of the Jimmy Lai national security case verdict, as delivered on December 15, 2025. Photo: HKFP.

“Evasive” and “unreliable”

Judge Toh told a packed courtroom that Lai’s testimony was “evasive” and “unreliable,” saying his actions amounted to an American urging Russia to topple the US government.

Citing live chats and Fox News interviews, she added that Lai had harbored “resentment and hatred” towards China from an early stage.

In a judgment over 850 pages long, the judges said Lai’s intent was “to seek the downfall of [the Chinese Communist Party]” at the cost of the interests of people in Hong Kong and mainland China.

“This was the ultimate aim of the conspiracies and secessionist publications,” the judges wrote.

Lai’s intention to carry out a campaign requesting foreign countries to sanction Hong Kong and China did not cease after the imposition of the national security law in 2020, they added.

“The only adaptation he made after the [national security law] was in form rather than in substance,” the judges wrote.

Before the security law was enacted, his calls for sanctions were “open and direct,” and continued after the law’s enactment in ways that were “implicit and subtle,” according to the judgment.

Lai’s “intention to carry out his campaign remained the same as before, and he continued to act in furtherance of that campaign.”

“Objectively seditious”

The judges also said the Apple Daily articles brought up in court were “objectively seditious” and written to make people view the Hong Kong government with “hatred and contempt.”

Lai was using his newspaper to spread his political agenda, the judges added.

“Given his position as the hands‑on boss of Apple Daily and the degree of his involvement in its operation, we are satisfied that he agreed with those articles which were consistent with his own political stance,” the judgment read.

The judges also highlighted the “extensive” foreign connections the tycoon had, including with top US officials during the first Donald Trump administration.

Through his personal aide, Mark Simon, Lai went on two separate trips to Washington, DC, in 2019 and met top US officials, such as Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, to lobby and seek their support against China and Hong Kong, the judges said.

The judges also said Lai had “affiliated himself with Western values.”

“In short, Lai’s endgame was to change the regime of [the Chinese Communist Party],” the judges added.

Lai “had an obsession with changing [the Chinese Communist Party’s] values to those of the Western world and counterbalancing China’s influence in the Asian region and the rest of the world.”

“Justice served”

Speaking outside the West Kowloon Law Courts Building shortly after the guilty verdict was delivered, Chief Superintendent Steve Li of the police’s National Security Department said Lai’s conviction was “justice served.”

Lai “exploited his media enterprise” and used his wealth and “extensive foreign political connections” to collude with foreign powers, Li said.

He also referred to recent foreign media interviews given by the mogul’s daughter, Claire Lai, in which she said she was concerned that her septuagenarian father had been deprived of medical treatment.

Li said that Claire Lai mentioned Jimmy Lai’s deteriorating vision and hearing, and that her father could barely walk properly.

Addressing journalists who had all attended the court hearing, he said that they should have seen “what happened inside,” and it was “not the situation… described by his daughter.”

Lai was accused of foreign collusion and sedition alongside a group of Apple Daily executives, including former editor-in-chief Ryan Law and ex-associate publisher Chan Pui-man, who have pleaded guilty and are now awaiting sentencing. Some of the co-defendants had testified against Lai in court.

Journalist Ronson Chan, also a former Apple Daily reporter, told the press shortly before the hearing:

For the past 30 years in Hong Kong, we were able to occupy a very special place. We were able to hold a more critical view of the country and more openly seek democracy in China, and proudly engage in journalism… but I don’t think these things will appear again.

The verdict concludes the years-long proceedings of the high-profile national security case. Lai has been detained for over 1,800 days, while Apple Daily was forced to shutter in June 2021.

Beijing’s law

Beijing inserted national security legislation directly into Hong Kong’s mini-constitution in June 2020, following a year of pro-democracy protests and unrest, criminalising subversion, secession, collusion with foreign forces, and terrorist acts — broadly defined to include disruption to transport and other infrastructure.

In their closing arguments, prosecutors alleged that Lai’s international connections were proof of his “unwavering intent” to attract foreign sanctions, and that he did not ask activists and foreign politicians to their calls for sanctions even after Beijing’s security law in the city was passed.

Lai’s defence lawyer, Robert Pang, argued that the Apple Daily founder’s remarks in a livestreamed talk show hosted on his Twitter account only amounted to analysis of foreign affairs and were not requests for foreign sanctions against Hong Kong or China.

Pang also argued that newspaper publishers should enjoy a “greater latitude” of freedom of expression as guaranteed by the constitutional right to press freedom.

Lai’s children have been rallying for international support to secure his release, warning of their father’s deteriorating health while in custody.

Hong Kong authorities have denied any mistreatment of Lai during his detention, saying the media mogul has been receiving appropriate treatment and medical care.

In August, the court postponed closing arguments in Lai’s case due to a “medical issue” with his heart. Lai’s lawyers told the court that he had experienced heart palpitations during the trial.

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