A Hong Kong appeals court has overturned fraud convictions against Jimmy Lai, handing the former media mogul a rare legal victory even as he faces 20 years in prison on a separate national security charge that could keep him incarcerated for life.
Lai, 78, an outspoken critic of China’s communist regime and founder of the now-defunct newspaper Apple Daily, has been widely seen as a symbol of Hong Kong’s diminishing press freedom and civil liberties. He has now spent more than 1,800 days in prison since his 2020 arrest.
A lower court judge in December 2022 sentenced Lai to five years and nine months in prison and fined him HK$2 million (about $257,000 at the time), saying the defendant had breached a lease contract for his newspaper’s headquarters by concealing the operations of a private company, Dico Consultants, in the building. Lai’s co-defendant, Wong Wai-keung, was sentenced to 21 months in prison….
Hong Kong Court Overturns Jimmy Lai’s Fraud Conviction
