Hong Kong’s Jimmy Lai denies pushing staff to draft sanctions list for US

Judges grill former media boss on ‘confidential’ US message he forwarded to staff and friends in opposition camp

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A prison vehicle brings Jimmy Lai to West Kowloon Court ahead of the second day of his oral testimony in his trial. Photo: Edmond So

Published: 10:02pm, 21 Nov 2024Updated: 1:00am, 29 Nov 2024

Former media boss Jimmy Lai Chee-ying has revealed he had access to “internal” US government information but denied a former top aide’s allegation he had pressured his now-defunct Apple Daily tabloid to draft a sanctions list for Washington after Hong Kong adopted the 2020 national security law.

Lai, 77, returned to the witness box on Thursday on the second day of his oral testimony at West Kowloon Court and denied incriminating accusations earlier made against him by former staff in his high-profile trial.

The court heard that Lai received a confidential request in July 2020 calling for a list of people deemed to have undermined Hong Kong’s autonomy.

Lai said the message was sent to him via Signal, which he described as a messaging app with a “very strict” encryption protocol, from someone who had access to then US president Donald Trump’s administration.

Asked why he had forwarded the supposedly secret message to Chan Pui-man, then Apple Daily’s associate publisher, Lai said: “Because I thought it was an important document by somebody who sent it confidentially, but I don’t remember who he was.”

Lai’s trial entered its 94th day, with around 50 mostly middle-aged and elderly residents lining up outside the court on another rainy morning hoping to grab a public gallery seat to watch the proceedings.