BREAKING: Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai will not appeal nat. security conviction, 20-year jail term, lawyer says

2026-03-06 - 04:15

Hong Kong pro-democracy tycoon Jimmy Lai will not appeal against his national security conviction and 20-year jail term, his lawyer has said. Hong Kong media mogul Jimmy Lai. File Photo: Kelly Ho/HKFP. Lai, 78, was sentenced to 20 years behind bars on February 9 – the longest jail term handed down so far under the national security law that Beijing imposed following the 2019 protests and unrest. “We can confirm we have clear and definitive instructions not to lodge an appeal against [the] conviction or sentence,” one of Lai’s lawyers told HKFP on Friday. The founder of the now-shuttered Apple Daily newspaper was found guilty in December of two counts of conspiring to collude with foreign forces and one count of conspiring to publish seditious publications. His lawyer did not elaborate on the reason for not appealing. Eight co-defendants, including six former Apple Daily executives, pleaded guilty and were sentenced to up to 10 years in prison alongside Lai. So far, only Fung Wai-kong, a former editorial writer and the editor-in-chief of Apple Daily’s English news section, who was handed a 10-year jail term, had filed an appeal for a shorter sentence.