Jimmy Lai’s legal team has asked UK PM for an urgent meeting

• Jailed Prior to Jimmy Lai’s trial later this year on accusations related to national security.
• Lai, a British national, could serve the rest of his life in prison.
• His backers claim that all of the accusations are politically motivated.

Jailed Prior to Jimmy Lai’s trial later this year on accusations related to national security, his foreign legal team has requested an immediate meeting with UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

Mr. Lai, a British national, could serve the rest of his life in prison if found guilty of sedition and cooperating with foreign forces.

The international legal team for Mr. Lai states in a letter that they want to talk about “possible strategies to achieve Mr. Lai’s release.”

His defense attorneys call the evidence against him “very troubling” and “emblematic.”

Jimmy Lai has already spent two years in jail while being held for a number of crimes. For violating a lease at the newspaper’s offices, he was given an additional five years and nine months of prison time in December.

His backers claim that all of the accusations are politically motivated.

The pro-democracy journal Apple Daily was launched by Mr. Lai. His tabloid was regarded as the sole opposition publication in Hong Kong for more than 25 years.

However, the newspaper was forced to shut down in June 2021 after Hong Kong’s national security statute resulted in the freezing of its accounts and the imprisonment of several key staff members.

In 2020, Beijing implemented the once British colony the comprehensive national security law.

After a year of frequently violent protests, the authorities assert that it was necessary to regain order. The use of “lawfare,” or the use of the legal system as a political tool, according to critics, is being utilized to intimidate and quiet Beijing’s political rivals.

Most of the political opposition now is either imprisoned or has left the region.

Mr. Lai has long been seen as the main target of the new legislation, and his UK-based legal team has asked the foreign ministries for meetings on two separate occasions; the first request, according to them, was turned down, and the second went unanswered.

The letter claims that the UK government granted permission for the team to consult with a minister from the foreign office earlier this month.

In the letter, Caoilfhionn Gallagher KC also made note of the fact that while the UK government had not issued a formal statement, the US government had denounced Mr. Lai’s conviction on fraud charges in October.

A junior foreign office minister met with Mr. Lai’s legal team on Tuesday, the British government confirmed.

“We have been clear that the Hong Kong authorities must stop their targeting of pro-democracy voices, including Jimmy Lai,” the prime minister’s spokesperson stated.

Sebastien Lai, Mr. Lai’s son, has told the BBC that his father shouldn’t be imprisoned.

“This is a man who for twenty-odd years has given up a lot for democracy in Hong Kong which was something that was actually promised when the British handed Hong Kong back to China,” he said.

Sebastien is a British citizen, much like his father. He resides in Taiwan in self-imposed exile. He is worried if he can go back home after his father was detained under the national security statute.

“He is a British citizen who is in jail for championing these values we all take for granted that are sacrosanct to all of us,” the 28-year-old said of his father.

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