Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai was jailed for 12 months on Friday over one of many metropolis’s biggest-ever protests in 2019.
(*12*)It is the primary time the 73-year-old — who’s at present in custody after his arrest below Beijing’s sweeping nationwide safety legislation — has acquired a sentence for his activism.
Alongside Lai, 4 different defendants additionally acquired quick jail phrases of eight to 18 months for organising and knowingly collaborating within the peaceable protest on August 18, 2019, which referred to as for democracy and larger police accountability.
Four different defendants acquired suspended sentences, together with 82-year-old revered barrister Martin Lee, generally known as the “father of democracy” in Hong Kong, and 73-year-old barrister and former lawmaker Margaret Ng.
Shortly earlier than the sentencing was handed down, prosecutors pressed two extra contemporary prices in opposition to Lai — a further depend of conspiring to collude with overseas forces below the sweeping nationwide safety legislation, and conspiring to hinder the course of justice.
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