HONG KONG: Jimmy Lai, the pro-democracy former Hong Kong media mogul and outspoken critic of Beijing, was convicted in a landmark national security trial in the city’s court on Monday, which could send him to prison for the rest of his life.
Three government-vetted judges found Lai, 78, guilty of conspiring with others to collude with foreign forces to endanger national security and conspiracy to publish seditious articles. He pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Lai, 78, was arrested in August 2020 under a Beijing-imposed national security law that was implemented following massive anti-government protests in 2019. During his five years in custody, much of it in solitary confinement, Lai has been convicted of several lesser offenses and appears to have grown more frail and thinner.
Lai’s trial, conducted without a jury, has been closely monitored by the US, Britain, the European Union and political observers as a barometer of media freedom and judicial independence in the former British colony, which returned to Chinese rule in 1997.
Court said Lai spent years plotting against Beijing
Reading from an 855-page verdict, Judge Esther Toh said that Lai had extended a “constant invitation” to the US to help bring down the Chinese government with the excuse of helping Hong Kongers.
Lai’s lawyers admitted during the trial that he had called for sanctions before the law took effect, but insisted he dropped these calls to comply with the law.
But the judges ruled that Lai had never wavered in his intention to destabilize the ruling Chinese Communist Party, “continuing though in a less explicit way.”
Toh said the court was satisfied that Lai was the mastermind of the conspiracies and that Lai’s evidence was at times contradictory and unreliable. The judges ruled that the only reasonable inference from the evidence was that Lai’s only intent, both before and after the security law, was to seek the downfall of the ruling Communist Party even at the sacrifice of the people of China and Hong Kong.
“This was the ultimate aim of the conspiracies and secessionist publications,” they wrote.
Among the attendees were Lai’s wife and son, and Hong Kong’s Roman Catholic Cardinal Joseph Zen. Lai pressed his lips and nodded to his family before being escorted out of the courtroom by guards.
His verdict is also a test for Beijing’s diplomatic ties. US President Donald Trump said he has raised the case with China, and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has said his government has made it a priority to secure the release of Lai, who is a British citizen.
Lai could face life in prison
The founder of the now-defunct pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily will be sentenced on a later day.
Under the security law, the collusion charge could result in a sentence ranging from three years in jail to life imprisonment, depending on the offense’s nature and his role in it. Hearings were set to begin Jan. 12 for Lai and other defendants in the case to argue for a shorter sentence.
The Apple Daily, a vocal critic of the Hong Kong government and Beijing, was forced to shut in 2021 after police raided its newsroom and arrested its senior journalists, with authorities freezing its assets.
During Lai’s 156-day trial, prosecutors accused him of conspiring with senior executives of Apple Daily and others to request foreign forces to impose sanctions or blockades and engage in other hostile activities against Hong Kong or China.
The prosecution also accused Lai of making such requests, highlighting his meetings with former US Vice President Mike Pence and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in July 2019 at the height of the protests.
It also presented 161 publications, including Apple Daily articles, to the court as evidence, as well as social media posts and text messages.
Lai testified for 52 days in his own defense, arguing that he had not called for foreign sanctions after the sweeping security law was imposed in June 2020.
His legal team also argued for freedom of expression.
Health concerns raised during marathon trial
As the trial progressed, Lai’s health appeared to be deteriorating.
Lai’s lawyers in August told the court that he suffered from heart palpitations. After the verdict, lawyer, Robert Pang, said his client is doing okay as the legal team studies the verdict.
Before the verdict, his daughter Claire told The Associated Press that her father has become weaker and lost some of his nails and teeth. She also said he suffered from infections for months, along with constant back pain, diabetes, heart issues and high blood pressure.
“His spirit is strong but his body is failing,” she said.
Hong Kong’s government said no abnormalities were found during a medical examination that followed Lai’s complaint of heart problems. It added this month that the medical services provided to him were adequate.
Steve Li, chief superintendent of Hong Kong police’s National Security Department, welcomed the guilty verdict and disputed claims of Lai’s worsening health.
“Lai’s conviction is justice served,” he told reporters.
Before sunrise, dozens of residents queued outside the court building to secure a courtroom seat.
Former Apple Daily employee Tammy Cheung arrived at 5 a.m., saying she wanted to know about Lai’s condition after reports of his health.
She said she felt the process was being rushed since the verdict date was announced only last Friday, but added, “I’m relieved that this case can at least conclude soon.”
Rights groups, including global media watchdog Reporters Without Borders and Amnesty International, criticized the verdict.
“It is not an individual who has been on trial — it is press freedom itself, and with this verdict that has been shattered,” said Reporters Without Borders’ director general Thibaut Bruttin.
Originally scheduled to start in December 2022, Lai’s trial was postponed to 2023 as authorities blocked a British lawyer from representing him, citing national security risks.
In 2022, Lai was sentenced to five years and nine months in prison over separate fraud charges involving lease violations, in addition to other cases related to the 2019 protests.
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Former Hong Kong pro-democracy media mogul Jimmy Lai convicted in landmark national security trial
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Former Hong Kong pro-democracy media mogul Jimmy Lai convicted in landmark national security trial
- Three government-vetted judges on Monday found Lai, 78, guilty of conspiring with others to collude with foreign forces to endanger national security and conspiracy to publish seditious articles
Refugee firefighters in Mauritania battle bushfires to give back to the community that took them in
MBERA: The men move in rhythm, swaying in line and beating the ground with spindly tree branches as the sun sets over the barren and hostile Mauritanian desert. The crack of the wood against dry grass lands in unison, a technique perfected by more than a decade of fighting bushfires.
There is no fire today but the men — volunteer firefighters backed by the UN refugee agency — keep on training.
In this region of West Africa, bushfires are deadly. They can break out in the blink of an eye and last for days. The impoverished, vast territory is shared by Mauritanians and more than 250,000 refugees from neighboring Mali, who rely on the scarce vegetation to feed their livestock.
For the refugee firefighters, battling the blazes is a way of giving back to the community that took them in when they fled violence and instability at home in Mali.
Newcomers with an old tradition
Hantam Ag Ahmedou was 11 years old when his family left Mali in 2012 to settle in the Mbera refugee camp in Mauritania, 48 kilometers (30 miles) from the Malian border. Like most refugees and locals, his family are herders and once in Mbera, they saw how quickly bushfires spread and how devastating they can be.
“We said to ourselves: There is this amazing generosity of the host community. These people share with us everything they have,” he told The Associated Press. “We needed to do something to lessen the burden.”
His father started organizing volunteer firefighters, at the time around 200 refugees. The Mauritanians had been fighting bushfires for decades, Ag Ahmedou said, but the Malian refugees brought know-how that gave them an advantage.
“You cannot stop bushfires with water,” Ag Ahmedou said. “That’s impossible, fires sometimes break out a hundred kilometers from the nearest water source.”
Instead they use tree branches, he said, to smother the fire.
“That’s the only way to do it,” he said.
The volunteer ‘brigade’
Since 2018, the firefighters have been under the patronage of the UNHCR. The European Union finances their training and equipment, as well as the clearing of firebreak strips to stop the fires from spreading. The volunteers today count over 360 refugees who work with the region’s authorities and firefighters.
When a bushfire breaks out and the alert comes in, the firefighters jump into their pickup trucks and drive out. Once at the site of a fire, a 20-member team spreads out and starts pounding the ground at the edge of the blaze with acacia branches — a rare tree that has a high resistance to heat.
Usually, three other teams stand by in case the first team needs replacing.
Ag Ahmedou started going out with the firefighters when he was 13, carrying water and food supplies for the men. He helped put out his first fire when he was 18, and has since beaten hundreds of blazes.
He knows how dangerous the task is but he doesn’t let the fear control him.
“Someone has to do it,” he said. “If the fire is not stopped, it can penetrate the refugee camp and the villages, kill animals, kill humans, and devastate the economy of the whole region.”
A climate-vulnerable nation
About 90 percent of Mauritania is covered by the Sahara Desert. Climate change has accelerated desertification and increased the pressure on natural resources, especially water, experts say. The United Nations says tensions between locals and refugees over grazing areas is a key threat to peace.
Tayyar Sukru Cansizoglu, the UNHCR chief in Mauritania, said that with the effects of climate change, even Mauritanians in the area cannot find enough grazing land for their own cows and goats — so a “single bushfire” becomes life-threatening for everyone.
When the first refugees arrived in 2012, authorities cleared a large chunk of land for the Mbera camp, which today has more than 150,000 Malian refugees. Another 150,000 live in villages scattered across the vast territory, sometimes outnumbering the locals 10 to one.
Chejna Abdallah, the mayor of the border town of Fassala, said because of “high pressure on natural resources, especially access to water,” tensions are rising between the locals and the Malians.
Giving back
Abderrahmane Maiga, a 52-year-old member of the “Mbera Fire Brigade,” as the firefighters call themselves, presses soil around a young seedling and carefully pours water at its base.
To make up for the vegetation losses, the firefighters have started setting up tree and plant nurseries across the desert — including acacias. This year, they also planted the first lemon and mango trees.
“It’s only right that we stand up to help people,” Maiga said.
He recalls one of the worst fires he faced in 2014, which dozens of men — both refugees and host community members — spent 48 hours battling. By the time it was over, some of the volunteers had collapsed from exhaustion.
Ag Ahmedou said he was aware of the tensions, especially as violence in Mali intensifies and going back is not an option for most of the refugees.
He said this was the life he was born into — a life in the desert, a life of food scarcity and “degraded land” — and that there is nowhere else for him to go. Fighting for survival is the only option.
“We cannot go to Europe and abandon our home,” he said. “So we have to resist. We have to fight.”
There is no fire today but the men — volunteer firefighters backed by the UN refugee agency — keep on training.
In this region of West Africa, bushfires are deadly. They can break out in the blink of an eye and last for days. The impoverished, vast territory is shared by Mauritanians and more than 250,000 refugees from neighboring Mali, who rely on the scarce vegetation to feed their livestock.
For the refugee firefighters, battling the blazes is a way of giving back to the community that took them in when they fled violence and instability at home in Mali.
Newcomers with an old tradition
Hantam Ag Ahmedou was 11 years old when his family left Mali in 2012 to settle in the Mbera refugee camp in Mauritania, 48 kilometers (30 miles) from the Malian border. Like most refugees and locals, his family are herders and once in Mbera, they saw how quickly bushfires spread and how devastating they can be.
“We said to ourselves: There is this amazing generosity of the host community. These people share with us everything they have,” he told The Associated Press. “We needed to do something to lessen the burden.”
His father started organizing volunteer firefighters, at the time around 200 refugees. The Mauritanians had been fighting bushfires for decades, Ag Ahmedou said, but the Malian refugees brought know-how that gave them an advantage.
“You cannot stop bushfires with water,” Ag Ahmedou said. “That’s impossible, fires sometimes break out a hundred kilometers from the nearest water source.”
Instead they use tree branches, he said, to smother the fire.
“That’s the only way to do it,” he said.
The volunteer ‘brigade’
Since 2018, the firefighters have been under the patronage of the UNHCR. The European Union finances their training and equipment, as well as the clearing of firebreak strips to stop the fires from spreading. The volunteers today count over 360 refugees who work with the region’s authorities and firefighters.
When a bushfire breaks out and the alert comes in, the firefighters jump into their pickup trucks and drive out. Once at the site of a fire, a 20-member team spreads out and starts pounding the ground at the edge of the blaze with acacia branches — a rare tree that has a high resistance to heat.
Usually, three other teams stand by in case the first team needs replacing.
Ag Ahmedou started going out with the firefighters when he was 13, carrying water and food supplies for the men. He helped put out his first fire when he was 18, and has since beaten hundreds of blazes.
He knows how dangerous the task is but he doesn’t let the fear control him.
“Someone has to do it,” he said. “If the fire is not stopped, it can penetrate the refugee camp and the villages, kill animals, kill humans, and devastate the economy of the whole region.”
A climate-vulnerable nation
About 90 percent of Mauritania is covered by the Sahara Desert. Climate change has accelerated desertification and increased the pressure on natural resources, especially water, experts say. The United Nations says tensions between locals and refugees over grazing areas is a key threat to peace.
Tayyar Sukru Cansizoglu, the UNHCR chief in Mauritania, said that with the effects of climate change, even Mauritanians in the area cannot find enough grazing land for their own cows and goats — so a “single bushfire” becomes life-threatening for everyone.
When the first refugees arrived in 2012, authorities cleared a large chunk of land for the Mbera camp, which today has more than 150,000 Malian refugees. Another 150,000 live in villages scattered across the vast territory, sometimes outnumbering the locals 10 to one.
Chejna Abdallah, the mayor of the border town of Fassala, said because of “high pressure on natural resources, especially access to water,” tensions are rising between the locals and the Malians.
Giving back
Abderrahmane Maiga, a 52-year-old member of the “Mbera Fire Brigade,” as the firefighters call themselves, presses soil around a young seedling and carefully pours water at its base.
To make up for the vegetation losses, the firefighters have started setting up tree and plant nurseries across the desert — including acacias. This year, they also planted the first lemon and mango trees.
“It’s only right that we stand up to help people,” Maiga said.
He recalls one of the worst fires he faced in 2014, which dozens of men — both refugees and host community members — spent 48 hours battling. By the time it was over, some of the volunteers had collapsed from exhaustion.
Ag Ahmedou said he was aware of the tensions, especially as violence in Mali intensifies and going back is not an option for most of the refugees.
He said this was the life he was born into — a life in the desert, a life of food scarcity and “degraded land” — and that there is nowhere else for him to go. Fighting for survival is the only option.
“We cannot go to Europe and abandon our home,” he said. “So we have to resist. We have to fight.”
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