Jimmy Lai wins fraud appeal days after 20 year jail sentence
&imwidth=600&imheight=450&format=webp&quality=medium "Jimmy Lai wins fraud appeal days after 20 year jail sentence")
Jimmy Lai Photograph: (WION Web Desk)
Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai has won an appeal in a fraud case, with the High Court quashing his conviction and sentence. The ruling comes just days after he was jailed for 20 years under the national security law on separate collusion charges.
China critic, Hong Kong pro democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai, on Thursday (Feb 26) won an appeal in a fraud case days after a court jailed him for 20 years on national security charges.
Lai's surprise win
Lai has won the appeal in a fraud case that stemmed from a contractual dispute and is not related to the charges he faces under the national security law. "(We) allow the appeals, quash the convictions and set aside the sentences," said High Court Chief Judge Jeremy Poon, announcing his ruling. The judge also revealed that Lai, who is currently in jail, has been granted permission to not attend court in person.
The surprise win comes on the heels of a two-decade-long prison sentence on collusion charges under a stringent Beijing-imposed national security law. The prosecutors in the fraud case alleged that a consultancy firm operated by Lai for his personal use had taken up office space, which was originally rented by Apple Daily for the purposes of printing and publication. This was found to be in breach of the terms of the lease signed by Lai's Apple Daily with a government agency and thus amounted to fraud, alleged the prosecutors.
However, on Thursday, the judge ruled that "prosecution has failed to prove that the applicants had made the false representation as alleged".
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Along with Lai, Wong Wai-Keung, a former executive at Apple Daily, was also charged in the fraud case. He was jailed for 21 months in 2022. Now, his conviction and sentence have also been quashed.
In 2022, the media tycoon, behind the now-defunct Apple Daily, received a jail sentence of five years and nine months over what the trial judge, as per AFP, said was a "planned, organised and years-long" scheme. Two of these years were set to overlap with Lai's 20-year sentence in the national security case.
