Former media boss Jimmy Lai Chee-ying has denied stirring up opposition against the Hong Kong government at a former American diplomat’s behest in the lead-up to the 2019 social unrest.
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Lai on Tuesday told his marathon national security trial that he did not beg for advice from James Cunningham, a US consul general in Hong Kong from 2005 to 2008, but nonetheless instructed his now-defunct Apple Daily newspaper to highlight Washington’s concerns for the city in a news report as the American had suggested.
The 77-year-old also acknowledged that he was eager to engage the retired diplomat to help a delegation of Hong Kong opposition activists garner US support for their efforts to block a contentious extradition bill in 2019.
On his 30th day in the witness box, Lai addressed West Kowloon Court on his involvement in three lobbying attempts to get Washington involved in Hong Kong in early to mid-2019, as prosecutors continued cross-examining his evidence.
He has denied two conspiracy charges of collusion with foreign forces under the 2020 national security law, as well as a third of conspiracy to print and distribute seditious publications in breach of colonial-era legislation.
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Prosecutors highlighted a meeting between former Hong Kong chief secretary Anson Chan Fang On-sang and then US vice-president Mike Pence on March 22, 2019.