Li, a 33-year-old gifted programmer, has already pleaded guilty under the national security law for his role in the democracy movement and is expected to tie Lai to an alleged foreign conspiracy against Hong Kong and China…reports Asian Lite News
The witnesses against Hong Media media tycoon and activist Jimmy Lai were strongly mistreated by the Chinese authorities to bring out the ‘desired’ confessions, raising questions about whether his testimony will be voluntary and reliable, an investigative report by The Washington Post stated.
Hong Kong’s highest-profile trial since the 2020 crackdown will begin on Monday, with Andy Li Yu-hin as the key witness. Li’s testimony will be crucial to the government’s case against Jimmy Lai, the billionaire media mogul and founder of Apple Daily.
Lai is charged under the national security law with “colluding with foreign forces.” Hong Kong authorities plan to use the prosecution to paint a narrative of the 2019 protests as a US-directed plot aimed at destabilising China.
12 young Hong Kongers, including Li, were trying to flee on boats when they were captured by the Chinese Coast Guard (CCG).
After Beijing passed a draconian new national security law that would crush the territory’s remaining freedoms and impose long prison sentences on pro-democracy activists, several young Hong Kongers tried to flee–only to be apprehended in international waters by China, according to The Post.
“They have a plot line, a kind of story,” said Beatrice Li, Andy’s sister, of the prosecution. “And they need to fit the characters in.
Li’s testimony will be key to the government’s case against Jimmy Lai, the billionaire media mogul and founder of Apple Daily, the independent newspaper that has now been shut down. Lai is charged under the national security law with “colluding with foreign forces.”
Li, a 33-year-old gifted programmer, has already pleaded guilty under the national security law for his role in the democracy movement and is expected to tie Lai to an alleged foreign conspiracy against Hong Kong and China.
Lai, 76, has already been convicted of other crimes, including unlawful assembly and fraud, but the national security charge is the most serious, punishable by up to life in jail.
Several lawyers and activists say that this confluence of events that brought the mogul and the former activist together as defendant and witness is a testament to how far the independence of the city’s courts has eroded since the national security law was imposed by Beijing in June 2020.
It also shows how the Hong Kong courts now “resemble the system of justice in mainland China” where coerced testimony is routinely used to secure convictions. Hong Kong police have started airing confessions from jailed protesters on television, mirroring the long-established practice of public, forced confessions in China, the report added.
“We don’t have any faith in the process within Hong Kong,” said Caoilfhionn Gallagher, the Irish human rights lawyer who leads Lai’s international legal team. “Jimmy Lai is being prosecuted under a law that should not exist in a system that has become profoundly unfair.”
A spokesman for the Hong Kong government, in a written response to questions from The Post, said all prosecutorial decisions by the Hong Kong Department of Justice “are based on admissible evidence” and that Hong Kong “enjoys independent judicial power” with courts and judges who are “free from any interference.”
“Cases will never be handled any differently owing to the profession, political beliefs or background of the persons involved,” the spokesman said. “To suggest otherwise is utter nonsense without regard to objective facts.”
China’s foreign ministry said ahead of the trial that “Jimmy Lai is one of the most notorious anti-China elements bent on destabilising Hong Kong and a mastermind of the riots…responsible for numerous egregious acts.”
Li, who has become a devout Christian in his time in detention, spends his days learning languages–Ukraine and Arabic are his current focus–solving crossword puzzles and reciting Psalms, according to people familiar with his situation, The Washington Post reported.
Jimmy Lai’s story is lore in Hong Kong. Many in the city can recite how he arrived in the city as a stowaway from China when he was 12, toiling as a child labourer in a garment factory, only to eventually find a popular clothing brand of his own and then direct his wealth towards pro-democracy causes.
It was the June 4, 1989, crackdown on Tiananmen Square in Beijing that prompted his turn to the media. It was “the business of freedom, of delivering freedom,” Lai said in a 2016 interview. In 1995, as Hong Kong’s handover to China approached, he founded Apple Daily with his own money. (ANI)
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