The justice of Hong Kong condemned the activist on Monday and media mogul Jimmy Lai to 20 years in prison on charges of conspiracy to collude with external forces and to publish seditious publicationsalmost two months after having been found guilty of crimes that could have led to a life sentence.
The verdict, in addition to Lai, 78 years oldalso affects its three companies Apple Daily Limited, Apple Daily Printing Limited and Apple Daily Internet Limited, created around the diario ‘Apple Daily’which has been classified as seditious by the Hong Kong High Courtas reported by the Chinese news agency Xinhua.
The court has sentenced Let and to the three entities for a charge of conspiracy to publish a seditious publication and one count of conspiracy to collude with foreign forces. As an individual, the magnate has also been convicted of another accusation like the second.
Previous convictions
The magistrates have also issued the sentence against six former senior officials of the newspaper who had pleaded guilty and received sentences ranging from six years and nine months to ten years in prison, while two other activists have been sentenced to seven years and three months in prison, according to the newspaper ‘South China Morning Post’.
In this way and with a hearing of just ten minutes, a legal process that began in 2023 has concluded, although it was not Lai’s first time before Justice, as he had already been arrested in December 2020 under the controversial national security law –promoted from Beijing to criminalize issues such as sedition or foreign interference in Hong Kong–, since which time he has remained detained. Likewise, Lai was sentenced to 5 years and 9 months in prison in April 2021 for fraud and participation in an unauthorized protest, in a case that in turn led to prison sentences for several other opposition representatives.
He magnate of the media has thus become one of the symbols of the persecution against political opposition in Hong Kongwhere echoes of the massive protests against Carrie Lam’s government that began in 2019 still resonate. The mobilization was unprecedented since the United Kingdom ceded sovereignty of the territory to China in 1997.
The performance of the chinese authorities In this case, he has been the subject of numerous international criticisms, such as those issued by the European Union or the NGO Human Rights Watch after his guilty plea in December 2025.
