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Closing summary
It’s approaching 1.30pm in Hong Kong and we’re about to wrap up our live coverage of the verdicts handed down against pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai. Here’s our full report on all the key details, and a recap of today’s events is below. Thanks for being with us.
Lai could be jailed for life after being found guilty of conspiracy to collude with foreign forces in the city’s highest-profile trial under a China-imposed national security law. Judges in the Hong Kong high court on Monday called him a “mastermind” of conspiracies designed to destabilise the Chinese government.
Lai, 78, was charged with one count of conspiracy to publish seditious publications and two counts of conspiracy to foreign collusion, charges brought under the city’s punitive national security law and a British colonial-era sedition law that has seen renewed use in recent years by authorities.
Rights groups condemned the verdicts, with the Committee to Protect Journalists calling it a “sham conviction” and Amnesty International saying it “feels like the death knell for press freedom in Hong Kong”. Human Rights Watch called the conviction cruel and a travesty of justice.
Three entities of Lai’s now-defunct media outlet Apply Daily were co-accused with Lai were also found guilty of the two foreign collusion charges.
Lai had pleaded not guilty to all charges, telling the court he never tried to influence foreign policy or ask foreign officials to take concrete action on Hong Kong. He also distanced himself from violence and separatism, saying Apple Daily represented Hongkongers’ core values such as “freedom, pursuit of democracy, freedom of speech”.
Lai is serving several protest-related sentences totalling almost 10 years and could be given a life sentence for today’s convictions. Sentencing is to be delivered at a later time, with the next court date on 12 January and Lai having an opportunity to appeal.
There was a large police presence outside the law courts building in West Kowloon for the verdicts at a trial that stretched for more than two years.
Lai’s family has said his health has worsened after more than 1,800 days in solitary confinement and that he suffers from diabetes, high blood pressure and heart palpitations.
With Helen Davidson and agencies
Updated at 02.04 EST
Taiwan has also condemned the guilty verdicts against Jimmy Lai and called for his immediate release.
“This ruling serves as a declaration to the world that Hong Kong’s freedoms, democracy, and judicial independence have been systematically eroded,” Taiwan’s China-policy making Mainland Affairs Council said in a statement quoted by Reuters.
Continuing the chorus of condemnation over the guilty verdicts for Jimmy Lai, the International Press Institute (IPI) said the conviction “shows how Hong Kong’s courts have been weaponised to crush independent journalism and voices”.
The IPI’s executive director, Scott Griffen, said in a statement:
Lai’s inhumane imprisonment also lays bare how far the Chinese authorities will go to silence independent information and ideas.
His unwavering commitment to press freedom — despite years of brutal conditions — has made him a powerful symbol for media communities worldwide. It is long past time for his inhumane suffering to end. He must be released.
In October the IPI named Lai a 2025 world press freedom hero.
Jimmy Lai went from child labourer to billionaire – and used his power and wealth to promote democracy, which ultimately pitted him against authorities in Beijing.
As Helen Davidson and Amy Hawkins write in this just-published account of his rise and fall, the guilty verdicts in the landmark trial were expected. Lai has long been a thorn in Beijing’s side and was a primary target of the most recent and definitive crackdown on Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement.
Lai’s trial was one of the last unfinished national security prosecutions of Hong Kong’s high-profile activists over their involvement in the 2019 protests. Hundreds of activists, lawyers and politicians have been pursued and jailed, or chased into exile. But few have captured global attention like Lai, whose life and career has developed in tangent with Hong Kong’s sputtering walk towards democracy, and then its fall.
“The trajectory of his life reflects the history of Hong Kong itself,” said one lawyer.
You can read the full story here:
Updated at 01.25 EST
Images have come in of a correctional services department vehicle thought to have been prepared to carry Jimmy Lai leaving the West Kowloon law courts after the guilty verdicts against him.
Photograph: Chan Long Hei/AP
As mentioned, Hong Kong’s national security police chief, Steve Li Kwai-wah, has welcomed the verdicts, also saying the trial’s judges were “professional”.
Li (right) speaks to media outside court. Photograph: May James/EPAShare
Updated at 23.38 EST
Human Rights Watch has said Jimmy Lai’s conviction “on bogus charges after five years of solitary confinement is both cruel and a travesty of justice”.
The group’s Asia director, Elaine Pearson, said in a statement:
The Chinese government’s mistreatment of Jimmy Lai aims to silence everyone who dares to criticise the Communist party.
Foreign governments should respond to the travesty of Jimmy Lai’s trial by pressing for the quashing of the case and his immediate release.
The Chinese and Hong Kong governments should pay a cost for their unrelenting efforts to muzzle Hong Kong’s press.
Reporters Without Borders says it is outraged at Lai’s “unlawful conviction” and that it “only demonstrates the alarming deterioration of media freedom in the territory”.
A statement from the press freedom NGO continued:
It is not an individual who has been on trial – it is press freedom itself, and with this verdict that has been shattered.
The Apple Daily founder has embodied the courage of independent journalists in Hong Kong, and this verdict crushes any remaining space they have.
Democracies must finally act, and act fast: if they don’t, Lai will die in jail, and they will send a clear signal to the Chinese regime that it can spread its authoritarian model and violate international law, scot-free.
Hong Kong’s national security police chief has reportedly welcomed the guilty verdicts against Jimmy Lai.
Updated at 23.39 EST
Police and government officials are now addressing the media outside the court after Jimmy Lai’s conviction on national security charges, as Helen Davidson has just posted on Bluesky.
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Updated at 22.40 EST
Verdicts a ‘death knell’ for HK press freedom – Amnesty
Amnesty International has condemned Jimmy Lai’s conviction as “dismaying” and said it “feels like the death knell for press freedom in Hong Kong, where the essential work of journalism has been rebranded as a crime”.
The group’s China director, Sarah Brooks, said the verdicts also showed that Hong Kong’s national security laws were designed not to protect people but “to silence them”.
Brooks called Lai a “prisoner of conscience” and demanded his immediate release.
The statement said Lai was jailed “simply because he and his Apple Daily newspaper criticised the government” and that his conviction “should also serve as a warning to all people doing business in Hong Kong: that pursuing opportunities in the city comes with severe legal risks”.
This verdict is not just about one man; it is the latest step in a systematic crackdown on freedom of expression in Hong Kong: targeting not only protests and political parties but the very idea that people can – indeed, should – hold power to account.
Updated at 22.57 EST
Lai verdicts condemned as ‘sham conviction’
The Committee to Protect Journalists has decried the Jimmy Lai verdicts as a “sham conviction” and called for his immediate release.
The advocacy group’s Asia-Pacific director, Beh Lih Yi, said: “This sham conviction is a disgraceful act of persecution.”
Her comments on the group’s website continue:
The ruling underscores Hong Kong’s utter contempt for press freedom, which is supposed to be protected under the city’s mini-constitution, the Basic Law. Jimmy Lai’s only crime is running a newspaper and defending democracy.
The risk of him dying from ill health in prison increases as each day passes – he must be reunited with his family immediately.
Updated at 22.15 EST
Jimmy Lai is facing possible lifetime jail sentences after today’s verdicts.
As mentioned earlier, the media tycoon and pro-democracy figure had pleaded not guilty to two counts of “conspiracy to foreign collusion” under the security law as well as one count of “conspiracy to publish seditious publications”.
The Hong Kong high court has just found him guilty of all three counts after a trial that lasted for more than two years.
We’ll be bringing you reaction to the verdicts as it comes to hand.
Updated at 22.01 EST
Helen Davidson
The next court date is 12 January, as parties have an opportunity to appeal.
The date for sentencing is to be determined.