Because of a lease, Hong Kong media mogul Jimmy Lai is imprisoned

The Hong Kong judiciary on Saturday issued a new sentence against pro-democracy media mogul Jimmy Lai, who was sentenced to five years and nine months in prison after being convicted of fraud in a lease agreement.

Welay, 75, a co-founder of the now-closed Apple Daily newspaper, recently served a 20-month prison sentence, after several convictions for his role in unauthorized protests and gatherings.

He also faces a possible life sentence in his upcoming trial on national security charges.

While the previous convictions are related to his role in the widespread pro-democracy demonstrations that swept Hong Kong in 2019, the latest case relates to one of his companies violating the terms of the lease for his newspaper's offices.

Lai and Apple Daily chief executive Wong Wai-keung were convicted in October of fraud in what Judge Stanley Chan called a "years-long planned and orchestrated" plot.

Prosecutors said a consulting firm, which Lai ran for his own use, occupied space rented by Apple Daily for publishing and printing.

Prosecutors considered this a breach of the terms of the lease agreement signed by Apple Daily with a government company, and amounted to fraud.

Defense lawyers argued in their arguments that the case should have been a civil case rather than a criminal trial, and added that the space involved was very small.

In addition to the prison sentence, Lai was ordered to pay a fine of 2 million Hong Kong dollars (257,000 US dollars).

The co-accused, Wong, 61, was sentenced to 21 months in prison, and the judge likened him to "a driver who facilitates an escape to carry out a robbery."

The judge said the verdict was a punishment for a "simple fraud case" dating back to the 1990s when the lease contract began.

He criticized Apple Daily for exploiting its reputation as a well-known media company as a "protective shield", and believed that this prevented the owner from taking action against breaching the terms of the agreement.

But he said the case was not related to politics or freedom of the press.

"Don't have anything to do with politics," Chan said.

Li is one of Hong Kong's most prominent pro-democracy activists and has long been openly hated by Beijing.

Apple Daily has for years criticized the Chinese Communist Party and publicly supported democracy.

And it collapsed last year after its funds were frozen, and many of its prominent employees, in addition to Lai, were charged under the national security law imposed by Beijing on Hong Kong, especially because of their efforts to incite international sanctions against China.

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