A Hong Kong court has delayed the national security trial of media mogul Jimmy Lai until September 2023, after a hearing revealed Lai’s British lawyer had been denied a visa extension and forced to leave.
Lai’s trial was scheduled to begin on Tuesday, but has faced delays, including the Hong Kong government’s attempts to prevent his British lawyer Tim Owens from representing him.
The new trial dates are 25 September to 21 November next year, but questions over his legal representation remain.
The trial was supposed to begin last month but was postponed after the court heard that Hong Kong’s immigration department had withheld Owen’s application for an extension of his work visa. On Tuesday the court learned that the application had been denied and Owens had left Hong Kong, according to local media.
Prosecutors had previously sought to bar Owens from the case, arguing there was a national security risk in having overseas lawyers working on national security cases. After Hong Kong’s highest court rejected this submission, Hong Kong’s government appealed to Beijing highest legislative body, the National People’s Congress Standing Committee (NPCSC) to “interpret” its judgment.
On Tuesday, the court heard the NPSCS had not responded to the request to rule on whether foreign lawyers – who are allowed to represent Hong Kong clients under special circumstances – can work on national security cases.
Last week Tam Yiu-chung, Hong Kong’s representative delegate on the Standing Committee, said barring foreign lawyers from working on national security cases “matched with the legislative spirit and logic of the national security”, Hong Kong Free Press reported. Tam also said that national security defendants could be sent to the mainland for trial if they could not find a lawyer in Hong Kong.
Tam has previously suggested defendants could be extradited to the mainland for trial “if the (Chinese) government thinks it is necessary.”
Lai, a 75-year-old democracy activist and founder of the Apple Daily tabloid newspaper, potentially faces life in prison over charges of conspiring to collude with foreign forces, brought under a sweeping national security law imposed by Beijing with the support of the Hong Kong government in 2020.
Lai had recently completed a jail sentence for protest-related convictions, but on Saturday he was sentenced to a further five years and nine months for fraud, related to a contractual dispute. Supporters had suggested the conviction – over one of his companies violating terms of a lease – was politically motivated. The judge, Stanley Chan, said the case was “a simple case of fraud” and not connected to politics or press freedom.