Hong Kong democracy activist Jimmy Lai sentenced to 20 years in prison after national security conviction

HONG KONG — Pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai was sentenced to 20 years in prison in Hong Kong on Monday after his conviction in a landmark national security trial that has drawn international attention and become a symbol of Beijing’s crackdown on dissent in the Chinese territory.

Lai, a 78-year-old media tycoon who was one of the most prominent critics of China’s ruling Communist Party, had denied all charges against him. The U.S. and other governments have criticized the case as politically motivated and a sign of shrinking space for dissent in Hong Kong, a former British colony that returned to Chinese rule in 1997.

“Today’s egregious decision is the final nail in the coffin for freedom of the press in Hong Kong,” Jodie Ginsberg, chief executive of the Committee to Protect Journalists, said in a statement after the sentencing. “The international community must step up its pressure to free Jimmy Lai if we want press freedom to be respected anywhere in the world.”

Rights groups and members of Lai’s family have also expressed concern about his health after he has spent more than 1,800 days in custody, much of it in solitary confinement. Hong Kong officials say that Lai has received appropriate medical care and that he had asked to be kept separate from other prisoners.

Eighteen years of Lai’s sentence are to be served consecutively with another case. Eight co-defendants, including six journalists from Lai’s Apple Daily newspaper and two activists, received sentences ranging from six years and three months to 10 years. All except Lai had pleaded guilty, and several testified against him.

Dozens of people had lined up for days outside the courthouse in order to secure seats in the public gallery, with a police cordon separating them from reporters and police recording their identity card details. After the sentencing on Monday, supporters of the defendants comforted each other outside the courtroom.

Lai was arrested and charged in 2020, shortly after Beijing imposed a sweeping national security law in response to months of anti-government protests the previous year. Hong Kong authorities say that the law was necessary to restore stability after the protests, which sometimes turned violent, and that Lai’s case has nothing to do with press freedom.

The case has drawn scrutiny from foreign leaders, including President Donald Trump, who had vowed to secure Lai’s release and said he felt “so badly” after Lai was convicted in December on charges of sedition and colluding with foreign forces. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who met with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Beijing last month, also said he had raised the issue of Lai, who is a British citizen.

Hong Kong officials have defended the independence of the local judicial system, which is separate from mainland China’s, and accused foreign governments of interfering in internal affairs. Chief Justice Andrew Cheung, Hong Kong’s top judge, said in a speech last month that calls for Lai’s premature release “strike at the very heart of the rule of law itself.”

Lai — the founder of Apple Daily, a popular pro-democracy tabloid that was forced to shut down in 2021 — was convicted on one charge of conspiring to publish seditious articles under colonial-era legislation.

He was also convicted on two charges of colluding with foreign forces under the national security law, with the three judges describing Lai as the “mastermind” of a conspiracy to lobby foreign governments to impose sanctions, blockades or other hostile measures against China and Hong Kong.

In their 855-page verdict, the judges — who were handpicked to oversee national security cases — cited Lai’s interactions with senior U.S. government officials, including meetings he had at the height of the 2019 protests with Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, national security adviser John Bolton and multiple members of Congress.

Lai, who has the right to appeal, had already been convicted separately on a number of lesser charges, including fraud and unlawful assembly. In December 2022, he was sentenced to five years and nine months in prison in the fraud case.