Pro-democracy Hong Kong tycoon Jimmy Lai requests Rishi Sunak meeting – report

Lawyers for the Hong Kong activist and media mogul Jimmy Lai have reportedly requested a meeting with the British prime minister to discuss his case.

Lai, a dual Hong Kong and British citizen, is awaiting trial on national security charges in one of the most high-profile cases brought by Hong Kong authorities against the pro-democracy movement. If convicted he could face life in prison.

According to the BBC, Lai’s international legal team has written to the British leader, Rishi Sunak, requesting an urgent meeting about “potential ways to secure Mr Lai’s release”.

The charges were brought under the national security law imposed in Hong Kong in 2020, which outlaws a broad swathe of behaviour as either collusion with foreign forces – the charge Lai faces – or secession, subversion or terrorism.

The BBC reported the legal team had made two requests to meet UK foreign ministers in the past, which were either denied or unanswered. It said the UK government had earlier this month agreed to a meeting with a foreign office minister.

Lai’s legal team and the UK foreign office have been contacted for comment.

The 74-year-old has been in jail for more than two years, initially on remand and then serving successive terms for offences related to the 2019 protests and business fraud, all charges his supporters say are politically motivated. The Apple Daily newspaper Lai founded was also raided, his businesses were shut down, and his colleagues arrested.

Just days after his 2020 arrest on allegations of foreign collusion, Lai told the Guardian that Beijing wanted to make “Hong Kong people subservient”.

Lai’s national security trial was supposed to begin last year but was delayed in December, after government attempts to bar UK lawyer, Tim Owen, from representing him. It is now scheduled for September.

Shortly before his December court appearance he was sentenced to a further five years and nine months for fraud, related to a contractual dispute. Supporters have suggested the conviction – over one of his companies violating terms of a lease – was politically motivated. The judge, Stanley Chan, denied the accusation.

The UK government has repeatedly criticised the Hong Kong and Chinese authorities’ crackdown on the pro-democracy movement, including the prosecution of Lai. The US government has condemned Lai’s conviction for fraud, but the letter from his legal team reportedly noted that the UK had made no formal statement.

In December 2020, then foreign secretary Dominic Raab said the national security law breached the internationally binding joint declaration governing the return of Hong Kong from the UK to China, and was being used against Lai.

“This highlights the authorities’ continued attacks on the rights and freedoms of its people,” Raab said. “We have raised this case with the authorities in Hong Kong and call on them to end their targeting of Lai and other pro-democracy voices.”

The law has been used against dozens of pro-democracy activists and supporters, with almost all high-profile figures either in jail or exiled overseas.