Former media entrepreneur Jimmy Lai Chee-ying stated in court this Wednesday that he asked then-US Vice President Mike Pence in 2019 to support the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong.

“I asked him (Mike Pence) to speak out in favor of Hong Kong, to support us,” Jimmy Lai said, noting that it was beyond his power to appeal to the American leader to take concrete action.

Before his first testimony since his arrest nearly four years ago, Lai greeted the trial audience, surrounded by four police officers.

the businessman He is accused of “collusion with foreign forces” and seditionIn light of the national security law, imposed on Hong Kong by Beijing in 2020, he faces a sentence of life imprisonment.

At the start of the trial, Lai argued that the Apple Daily newspaper, which he ran and which has since been closed, embodied the “core values ​​of the people of Hong Kong” and wanted to promote freedom.

The newspaper reflected the “fundamental values ​​of the people of Hong Kong (…), the rule of law, freedom, the defense of democracy,” he highlighted.

“The more we know, the freer we are,” added the businessman, stating that he opposes violence and is against the independence of Hong Kong, something “too crazy to think about.”

Lai is currently serving a sentence of five years and nine months in prison for two counts of fraud and was also sentenced to 20 months in prison for participating in “unauthorized” pro-democracy protests in 2019 and 2020 in Hong Kong, a neighboring region of Macau.

In October, his son, Sebastian Lai, stated in London that his father, who suffers from diabetes, has been in isolation for more than 1,300 days, so “the health situation has deteriorated significantly.”

The trial of British-born Chinese-born Jimmy Lai is the most publicized of several cases of journalists and pro-democracy activists taking place in Hong Kong courts.

On Tuesday, courts in the region sentenced 45 activists to prison terms of up to ten years for holding unofficial primaries in 2020 to select opposition candidates for parliament.

Jurist Benny Tai Yiu-ting and 30 other defendants, including former student leader Joshua Wong Chi-fung and former congresswoman Claudia Mo Man-ching, pleaded guilty in May.

14 other defendants had pleaded not guilty, including former MP Leung Kwok-hung (a former Marxist known as “Long Hair”) and journalist Gwyneth Ho Kwai-lam.

The Public Ministry accused them of trying to guarantee a legislative majority to indiscriminately veto the budgets and thus paralyze the government and overthrow the city’s then leader, Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor.

The July 2020 primary attracted about 610,000 people, more than 13% of the city’s registered electorate. But the government postponed the legislative elections due to the pandemic.

Beijing accuses tycoon Jimmy Lai of being an “agent of anti-China forces”

Hong Kong tycoon Jimmy Lai is “an agent and pawn of anti-China forces” for the Beijing regime, after the businessman testified for the first time in the former British colony, in a trial for crimes against national security .

The spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Lin Jian, stated this Wednesday in a press conference that “Hong Kong is a society governed by the rule of law” and that “no one can use the flag of freedom to participate in illegal activities.” and attempts to escape the law. “

Lin stated that the Hong Kong judicial system “exercises its judicial power independently, in accordance with the lawwith fair and impartial procedures and open and transparent hearings.”

“The Chinese central government firmly supports the Hong Kong administrative region in protecting national security,” he added, expressing his “opposition” to the “interference of individual countries in China’s internal affairs, discrediting and undermining the State of law in Hong Kong”.

The case against Lai, which is already underway a sentence of more than five years on fraud charges for alleged lease violations of his multimedia company, was returned to Hong Kong this Wednesday with his testimony, after almost four years in detention.

Lai, 76, a critic of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and his companies face three charges under Beijing’s strict National Security Law in Hong Kong, including alleged collusion with “foreign forces” and sedition.

The charges are related to alleged calls for international sanctions against the city and China by the tycoon, as well as his role “by inciting public hatred”during mass protests against the Hong Kong government in 2019.

Beijing integrated the national security law into Hong Kong’s mini-constitution in June 2020 in response to the protests.