Hong Kong Court Overturns Fraud Conviction Of Beijing Critic Jimmy Lai | EUROtoday

HONG KONG (AP) — A Hong Kong appellate courtroom on Thursday quashed fraud convictions in opposition to onetime media magnate Jimmy Lai, a uncommon victory within the distinguished activist’s authorized battles.

Lai, 78, an outspoken critic of China’s ruling Communist Party who based the now-defunct Apple Daily, will keep in jail as a result of he was sentenced to twenty years weeks in the past after being convicted in one other case introduced beneath a China-imposed nationwide safety legislation.

That got here greater than 5 years after he was arrested beneath the legislation, which was utilized in a yearslong crackdown on a lot of Hong Kong’s main activists. His plight has evoked grief over town’s lack of press freedom and sparked a global outcry, although town’s authorities insist his case had nothing to do with media independence.

The conviction that was overturned Thursday was from an earlier fraud case by which prosecutors alleged {that a} consultancy agency managed by Lai had used workplace house that his media enterprise rented for publication and printing functions.

Lai was sentenced to 5 years and 9 months in jail in 2022 after being discovered responsible of two fraud costs.

A decrease courtroom decide discovered that Lai and his co-defendant Wong Wai-keung had hid that the agency was occupying house and had violated the lease settlement, saying he had used his media group as a protecting defend. He additionally fined Lai 2 million Hong Kong {dollars} ($257,000).

Judges on the Court of Appeal wrote of their judgment that whereas Apple Daily Printing had breached the lease phrases by permitting the agency to make use of a part of the house, it didn’t owe an obligation to reveal its breach. They stated even when it had owed and breached that obligation, the identical couldn’t be attributed to Lai and Wong as matter of legislation.

The trial decide’s “reasoning in concluding that the applicants were liable for the concealment as the prosecution contended is unsupportable,” they stated.

They additionally dominated that the prosecution had did not show past affordable doubt that the defendants had made false representations, throwing out each convictions and sentences.

Neither defendant appeared in courtroom.

The ruling may cut back Lai’s whole jail time. The judges dealing with Lai’s nationwide safety case allowed the 2 sentences to be served concurrently for under two years, with the opposite 18 years to be added after the fraud sentence.

The authorities stated in an announcement that the Department of Justice would research the judgment totally and contemplate whether or not to attraction.

It stated that though the Court of Appeal discovered the breach of contract didn’t meet the brink for a fraud conviction, it didn’t change the truth that Lai had used the workplace house for illegitimate private functions.

The prolonged sentence has raised issues that he may spend the remainder of his life in jail.

Lai’s youngsters have expressed hopes {that a} go to by U.S. President Donald Trump to Beijing may assist safe the discharge of their father, a British citizen. The White House has confirmed that Trump will journey to China on March 31 via April 2 to satisfy Chinese chief Xi Jinping.

U.Ok. Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper has stated Lai was sentenced for exercising his proper to freedom of expression and known as on the Hong Kong authorities to launch him on humanitarian grounds.

Chinese and Hong Kong authorities have defended Lai’s sentencing within the nationwide safety case, saying it mirrored the spirit of the rule of legislation. They additionally insisted the safety legislation is important for town’s stability.