Verdict for Imprisoned Hong Kong Media Tycoon Jimmy Lai Set for Monday

If convicted in Hong Kong, Lai could spend the rest of his life in jail.

A handout photo from Apple Daily showing Hong Kong business tycoon Jimmy Lai led by police officers during a search at the headquarters of Apple Daily after Lai, was arrested at his home in Hong Kong on Aug. 10, 2020. Handout/Getty Images

Jimmy Lai, prominent publisher and pro-democracy campaigner in Hong Kong, will receive a verdict on Dec. 15 in a landmark case in Hong Kong that rights groups say showcases how the Chinese Communist Party’s national security law has been weaponized to silence critics.

The verdict is set to be delivered by a panel of three judges handpicked by the pro-Beijing Hong Kong government during a hearing scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. local time (9 p.m. ET on Dec. 14), according to the Hong Kong Judiciary website. Local media reports say the hearing is expected to last about 60 minutes.

Lai is one of the most high-profile figures charged under the national security law, which was imposed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in Hong Kong five years ago in the wake of the mass protests against the Chinese regime’s political interference in Hong Kong.

Kept behind bars since December 2020, Lai is charged with two counts of “conspiracy to collude with foreign forces” under the CCP’s draconian security law. The former entrepreneur was also accused of taking part in a conspiracy to publish “seditious” publications under a colonial-era sedition law. Lai has pleaded not guilty to all three charges.

If convicted, he could spend the rest of his life in jail.

Lai is the founder of Next Media, once the city’s largest media company, and Apple Daily, a tabloid newspaper known for its critical coverage of the CCP and the pro-Beijing local government, especially during the years of the anti-CCP protests.

His newspaper was forced to shut down in Hong Kong in June 2021, shortly after some 500 police officers raided its newsroom, froze its assets, and arrested several senior directors, including its editor-in-chief, on suspicion of violations of Beijing’s national security law. A Hong Kong court ordered his media company to close later that year.

Lai’s verdict will be handed down amid rising criticism of Hong Kong authorities, who responded to the city’s deadliest blaze in nearly eight decades with arrests and detentions of those demanding accountability. In the wake of the devastating apartment fires, only 31.9 percent of registered voters cast their ballots in the legislative election on Dec. 7—the second-lowest turnout rate ever.

Calls for Release

Lai’s fate has captured international attention. U.S. President Donald Trump said in August that he had raised Lai’s case with Beijing.

“I’m going to be bringing it up—I’ve already brought it up—and I’m going to do everything I can to save him,” Trump told Fox News in August.

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said in 2024 that getting Lai, a British national, out of jail is a priority for his Labour government, according to the BBC. Speaking from his office on Dec. 2, Starmer reiterated his commitment to raising concerns about diminishing freedoms in Hong Kong and the prosecution of Lai.

When asked about Lai’s case at a regular briefing on Dec. 12, the regime’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Guo Jiakun, said China fully backed Hong Kong authorities’ efforts to punish those who endanger national security.

People arrive at the West Kowloon court for jailed Hong Kong media mogul Jimmy Lai's national security trial in Hong Kong on Aug. 28, 2025. Vernon Yuen/AFP via Getty Images

Ahead of the Hong Kong High Court’s ruling, the Committee to Protect Journalists—a New York-based rights advocacy group—called on the government to drop all charges against Lai and end his “show trial.”

“It may be Jimmy Lai who is in the dock, but it is press freedom—protected under Hong Kong’s Basic Law—that is on trial,” Beh Lih Yi, the committee’s Asia Pacific director, said in a Dec. 12 statement.

The writers association PEN International described Lai’s trial as “a chilling example” of how the Beijing-imposed national security law can be abused to silence expression and journalism.

“The world is watching, and Jimmy Lai’s ongoing persecution is an affront to the right to freedom of expression,” PEN International’s Ma Thida said in a statement on Dec. 12.

Health Concerns

Lai’s national security trial began on Dec. 18, 2023, after multiple delays. It was initially expected to last 80 days but ultimately dragged on for 156 working days and concluded in August 2025.

The drawn-out trial has sparked widespread criticism. Lai’s British lawyer was denied a visa extension and was unable to represent Lai after intervention from Beijing.

In November 2022, Hong Kong leader John Lee asked Beijing to decide whether foreign lawyers could take part in national security law trials, after the city’s highest court affirmed Lai’s right to hire a UK lawyer.

About a month later, Beijing granted Lee that power. Beijing’s rubber-stamp legislature said that Hong Kong’s courts need a certificate from its chief executive, or the national security committee—which is still led by Lee and another CCP official—in order to allow foreign lawyers to take part in national security cases.

In May 2023, that decision handed down by Beijing effectively became law after Hong Kong’s legislature passed an amendment to its legislation.

Instead of a jury, three judges appointed by Lee oversaw the trial, a departure from the city’s common law norms.

In recent weeks, Lai’s family and legal team have renewed their appeals for his release, saying the former media mogul, who turned 78 last week, had suffered significant weight loss and is increasingly frail.

For the past five years, Lai, who has diabetes, has been kept in solitary confinement and has been deprived of sunlight and fresh air, according to his son, Sebastien Lai.

“People often ask how he is coping. His religious faith sustains him,” Lai’s daughter Claire Lai wrote in an op-ed published in The Washington Post on Dec. 9.

“He says God is with him at every step, prayer brings him joy, and the prayers of others bring him a lightness of being.”