Hong Kong, Jan. 10 (AP) Lawyers for a jailed Hong Kong pro-democracy publisher have requested an urgent meeting with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, a senior member of his international legal team said Tuesday.
Jimmy Lai, the 75-year-old founder of the now-defunct Apple Daily newspaper, was arrested in 2020 during a crackdown on the city’s pro-democracy movement.
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He is fighting collusion charges under a national security law imposed by Beijing and faces up to life in prison if convicted.
Last month, the team called on the UK government to take immediate action to secure Lai’s release ahead of his high-profile national security trial after he was sentenced to five years and nine months in prison on charges of fraud related to lease violations.
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The meeting request is the latest attempt by his legal team to urge the British government to intervene in the case of Lai, who is a dual Hong Kong and British citizen.
“We have been clear that the Hong Kong authorities must put an end to pro-democracy voices, including Jimmy Lai,” Sunak’s spokesman, Max Blain, said in London.
“The Foreign Office has long supported Jimmy Lai and Asia Minister Anne-Marie Trevelyan met with his legal team today. We believe this is the right approach at this stage.” , he said.
Caoilfhionn Gallagher, the team’s leader, said Lai’s son was in London this week to ask British officials to protect his father.
“He is subject to the law – multiple lawsuits and lawsuits, all designed to silence and discredit him and send a clear message to others that they should not dare criticize the Chinese or Hong Kong authorities,” he said. said in an email response to The Associated Press.
Lai is accused of conspiring with others to seek the imposition of sanctions or a blockade, or to engage in hostile activities against Hong Kong or China. He also faces a charge of colluding with foreign forces to endanger national security, and a separate charge of sedition under a colonial-era law increasingly used to crush dissent.
His trial, originally scheduled to begin last month, was postponed to September after Hong Kong’s leader asked Beijing to make a decision that could prevent Lai from hiring a veteran British lawyer, Timothy Owen, to represent him the
The UK, along with other Western nations, has criticized China’s crackdown on political freedoms in Hong Kong, which was handed over from the UK to China in 1997 with Beijing promising to maintain freedoms in the western under a “one country, two”. systems framework”. (AP)
(This is an unedited, auto-generated story from the syndicated news feed, the body of the content may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)
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