Hong Kong tycoon Jimmy Lai found guilty under national security law

Hong Kong media mogul Jimmy Lai has been found guilty of collusion and sedition in his national security trial.

Jimmy Lai in 2020. Photo: HKFP.

Judges Alex Lee, Esther Toh, and Susana D’Almada Remedios delivered the guilty verdict on Monday at the West Kowloon Law Courts Building.

Lai, who turned 78 behind bars last week, was found guilty of two counts of conspiring to collude with foreign forces under the Beijing-imposed national security law, and a third count of sedition under colonial-era legislation.

The judges also convicted Lai’s companies – Apple Daily Ltd, Apple Daily Printing Ltd, and AD Internet Ltd – of conspiring to publish seditious publications and to commit foreign collusion.

A four-day mitigation hearing will be held on January 12, the court said.

See also: In full: The 855-page guilty verdict against media tycoon Jimmy Lai

Lai, wearing thick-rimmed glasses, a light green jumper and a beige jacket, gazed at the bench with his arms crossed as the judges delivered the guilty verdict.

Cardinal Joseph Zen (left), and Jimmy Lai’s wife Teresa (centre) and her son Lai Shun-yan (third from left) arrive at the West Kowloon Magistrates’ Court on December 15, 2025. Photo: Kyle Lam/HKFP.

The tycoon smiled and waved to the public gallery, where his wife Teresa, their son Lai Shun‑yan, and Cardinal Joseph Zen were seated, before he was led away by guards.

Monday’s verdict comes two years after the media tycoon went on trial, accused of using his now-shuttered tabloid newspaper, Apple Daily, to lobby foreign nations to impose sanctions, blockades, or other hostile activities against China and Hong Kong.

Jimmy Lai’s trial timeline – click to view+

• August 10, 2020 – Police arrested Jimmy Lai on suspicion of colluding with foreign forces. Over 100 police officers raided Apple Daily’s offices.
• December 3, 2020 – Lai was arrested for alleged fraud and denied bail.
• December 11, 2020 – Lai was formally charged with “collusion with foreign forces,” becoming the first person to be charged with collusion under the national security law.
• December 23, 2020 – High Court judge Alex Lee granted bail to Lai on conditions including that he stayed at home except for court hearings and reporting to the police.
• December 31, 2020 – Lai was put in custody after the Court of Final Appeal (CFA) allowed the justice department to appeal against Lai’s bail.
• February 9, 2021 – The CFA ruled in favour of the government and Lai’s bail was revoked.
• February 16, 2021 – Lai was arrested in custody on suspicion of assisting Andy Li abscond to Taiwan.
• February 18, 2021 – The High Court dismissed Lai’s bail application.
• April 1, 2021 – Lai, along with six other pro-democracy activists, was found guilty of organising and taking part in an “unlawful assembly” in August 2019. He was later sentenced to 12 months in prison for this offence. Lai was cleared of the organising conviction in August 2023. The case is still under appeal.
• May 28, 2021 – Lai, along with nine other pro-democracy activists, was sentenced to 14 months in jail for his “organising” role in a protest in October 2019.
• June 17, 2021 – Police raided Apple Daily a second time, arresting five senior executives including chief editor Ryan Law and Next Digital CEO Cheung Kim-hung. Police also froze HK$ 18 million worth of assets linked to Apple Daily.
• June 24, 2021 – Apple Daily issued its last edition after 26 years. Hundreds of supporters gathered outside its headquarters the night before as the tabloid went out of print.
• December 13, 2021 – Lai, along with seven other pro-democracy activists, was found guilty for organising, taking part in, or inciting others to join the banned Tiananmen crackdown vigil in 2020. He was sentenced to 13 months in jail.
• November 22, 2022 – Six senior executives of Apple Daily and its parent company Next Digital pleaded guilty to collusion.
• November 28, 2022 – Chief Executive John Lee invited Beijing to interpret the national security law to determine whether foreign counsels can participate in national security cases, after the government failed to block Lai from hiring British barrister Timothy Owen.
• December 1, 2022 – Lai’s trial was adjourned until December 13 while the city waited for Beijing to “clarify” whether overseas lawyers are allowed to appear in such cases.
• December 10, 2022 – Lai was sentenced to 5 years and 9 months in prison for fraud over a lease violation of the Next Digital headquarters.
• December 13, 2022 – Lai’s trial was adjourned again until September 25, 2023.
• December 30, 2022 – The Standing Committee of China’s National People’s Congress confirmed that Hong Kong’s chief executive and Committee for Safeguarding National Security had the authority to decide whether overseas lawyers could take part in security law trials. 
• August 18, 2023 – During a pre-trial review, Lai’s collusion trial was further postponed until December.
• September 26, 2023 – Lai’s 1,000th day in custody. International groups called for his release, while the government slammed such demands as “slanderous.”
• December 18, 2023 – Lai’s collusion case begins.
• November 20, 2024 – Lai takes the witness stand.
• March 6, 2025 – Lai wraps up his testimony after 52 days in the witness box.
• August 18, 2025 – The court begins to hear closing arguments after proceedings were twice delayed – first due to bad weather and then to health concerns relating to Lai’s heart.
• August 28, 2025 – The court adjourns verdict after finishing hearing closing arguments.

The media mogul also stood accused of stoking hatred against the authorities in Beijing and Hong Kong through 161 op-eds he allegedly wrote and published in his tabloid. Since he was detained in December 2020, the mogul has been in jail for more than 1,800 days.

A diagram included in the annex of the Jimmy Lai national security case verdict, as delivered on December 15, 2025. Photo: HKFP.

The marathon trial began in December 2023, with closing arguments concluding in August 2025, after more than 150 working days. The media tycoon faces up to life in prison.

‘Evasive’ and ‘unreliable’

On Monday, Judge Toh told a packed courtroom that Lai’s testimony was “evasive” and “unreliable,” saying his actions amounted to an American urging Russia to topple the US government.

Esther Toh. Photo: Hong Kong Judiciary.

Citing live chats and Fox News interviews, she added that Lai had harboured “resentment and hatred” towards China from an early stage.

In a judgment over 850 pages long, the judges said Lai’s intent was “to seek the downfall of [the Chinese Communist Party]” at the cost of the interests of people in Hong Kong and mainland China.

“This was the ultimate aim of the conspiracies and secessionist publications,” the judges wrote.

Lai’s intention to carry out a campaign requesting foreign countries to sanction Hong Kong and China did not cease after the imposition of the national security law in 2020, they added.

“The only adaptation he made after the [national security law] was in form rather than in substance,” the judges wrote.

A Correctional Services Department vehicle leaves the West Kowloon Law Courts Building on December 15, 2025, after the court delivered the verdict of media mogul Jimmy Lai’s national security case. Photo: Kyle Lam/HKFP.

Before the security law was enacted, his calls for sanctions were “open and direct,” and continued after the law’s enactment in ways that were “implicit and subtle,” according to the judgment.

Lai’s “intention to carry out his campaign remained the same as before, and he continued to act in furtherance of that campaign.”

‘Objectively seditious’

The judges also said the Apple Daily articles brought up in court were “objectively seditious” and written to make people view the Hong Kong government with “hatred and contempt.”

Lai was using his newspaper to spread his political agenda, the judges added.

“Given his position as the hands‑on boss of Apple Daily and the degree of his involvement in its operation, we are satisfied that he agreed with those articles which were consistent with his own political stance,” the judgment read.

The judges also highlighted the “extensive” foreign connections the tycoon had, including with top US officials during the first Donald Trump administration.

Through his personal aide, Mark Simon, Lai went on two separate trips to Washington, DC, in 2019 and met top US officials, such as Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, to lobby and seek their support against China and Hong Kong, the judges said.

Police officers and a police dog outside the West Kowloon Law Courts Building on December 15, 2025, when media mogul Jimmy Lai heard the verdict in his national security case. Photo: Kyle Lam/HKFP.

The judges also said Lai had “affiliated himself with Western values.”

“In short, Lai’s endgame was to change the regime of [the Chinese Communist Party],” the judges added.

Lai “had an obsession with changing [the Chinese Communist Party’s] values to those of the Western world and counterbalancing China’s influence in the Asian region and the rest of the world.”

‘Justice served’

Speaking outside the West Kowloon Law Courts Building on Monday, shortly after the guilty verdict was delivered, Chief Superintendent Steve Li of the police’s National Security Department said Lai’s conviction was “justice served.”

Lai “exploited his media enterprise” and used his wealth and “extensive foreign political connections” to collude with foreign powers, Li said.

Chief Superintendent Steve Li of the police’s National Security Department meets the press on December 15, 2025, after media mogul Jimmy Lai was found guilty of foreign collusion and sedition. Photo: Kyle Lam/HKFP.

He also referred to recent foreign media interviews given by the mogul’s daughter, Claire Lai, in which she said she was concerned that her septuagenarian father had been deprived of medical treatment.

Li said that Claire Lai mentioned Jimmy Lai’s deteriorating vision and hearing, and that her father could barely walk properly.

Addressing journalists who had all attended the court hearing, he said that they should have seen “what happened inside,” and it was “not the situation… described by his daughter.”

Box of apples

Before the verdict hearing, a box of apples was delivered by an unknown person to the West Kowloon Law Court Building before dawn, as dozens of people lined up in the cold for a public seat inside the courtroom. Many did not respond to questions from reporters.

At the end of the queue, two former Apple Daily employees told HKFP they felt ambivalent about the verdict.

“All of a sudden… they announced the verdict hearing on Monday,” former Apple Daily reporter Tammy Cheung said in Cantonese. “But I also felt relieved, because this case is coming to an end. After the boss [Lai], other colleagues could see an end too.”

Lai was accused of foreign collusion and sedition alongside a group of Apple Daily executives, including former editor-in-chief Ryan Law and ex-associate publisher Chan Pui-man, who have pleaded guilty and are now awaiting sentencing.

Some of the co-defendants had testified against Lai in court.

People queue outside the West Kowloon Law Courts Building to hear the verdict of pro-democracy media mogul Jimmy Lai on December 15, 2025. Photo: Kyle Lam/HKFP.

“Mr Lai has given a sense of support and encouragement to many people. He has committed to his cause despite the enormous challenges,” said another ex-Apple Daily reporter, who declined to give her name because she still works in the media.

“I hope he stays well and has a chance to reunite with his family.”

Journalist Ronson Chan, also a former Apple Daily reporter, told the press shortly before the hearing: “For the past 30 years in Hong Kong, we were able to occupy a very special place. We were able to hold a more critical view of the country and more openly seek democracy in China, and proudly engage in journalism… but I don’t think these things will appear again.”

A university student who gave only his first name, George, told HKFP he wanted to bear witness to this “historic moment” for a newspaper that “held an important place in Hong Kong’s history.”

Activists “Bull” Tsang Kin-shing and Lui Yuk-lin showed up outside the West Kowloon Magistrates’ Courts building with an apple.

Former member of the League of Social Democrats “Bull” Tsang Kin-shing arrives at the West Kowloon Magistrates’ Court eating an apple ahead of the verdict of Hong Kong pro-democracy media mogul and Apple Daily founder Jimmy Lai on December 15, 2025. Photo: Kyle Lam/HKFP. Activist Lui Yuk-lin arrives at the West Kowloon Magistrates’ Court with an apple on December 15, 2025, ahead of the verdict of Hong Kong pro-democracy media mogul and Apple Daily founder Jimmy Lai. Photo: James Lee/HKFP.

Staff from more than a dozen consulates attended the hearing to observe the proceedings, a source familiar with the matter told HKFP on Monday.

The verdict concludes the years-long proceedings in the high-profile national security case. Lai has been detained for over 1,800 days, while Apple Daily was forced to shutter in June 2021.

Beijing’s law

Beijing inserted national security legislation directly into Hong Kong’s mini-constitution in June 2020 following a year of pro-democracy protests and unrest, criminalising subversion, secession, collusion with foreign forces and terrorist acts – broadly defined to include disruption to transport and other infrastructure.

In their closing arguments, prosecutors alleged that Lai’s international connections were proof of his “unwavering intent” to attract foreign sanctions, and that he did not ask activists and foreign politicians to refrain from calling for sanctions even after Beijing’s security law in the city was passed.

Barrister Robert Pang walking into the West Kowloon Law Courts Building on December 15, 2025, ahead of the verdict of Hong Kong pro-democracy media mogul Jimmy Lai. Photo: Kyle Lam/HKFP.

Lai’s defence lawyer Robert Pang argued that the Apple Daily founder’s remarks in a livestreamed talk show hosted on his Twitter account only amounted to analysis of foreign affairs, and were not requests for foreign sanctions against Hong Kong or China.

Pang also argued that newspaper publishers should enjoy a “greater latitude” of freedom of expression as guaranteed by the constitutional right to press freedom.

Lai’s children have been rallying for international support to secure his release, warning of their father’s deteriorating health while in custody.

Hong Kong authorities have denied any mistreatment of Lai during his detention, saying the media mogul has been receiving appropriate treatment and medical care.

In August, the court postponed closing arguments in Lai’s case due to a “medical issue” with his heart. Lai’s lawyers told the court that he had experienced heart palpitations during the trial.