Leading Hong Kong democrat’s son says trial outcome pre-determined

The son of leading China critic and Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai said on Friday he thought the outcome of his father’s trial next week had already been decided but he was proud of him for standing up for his beliefs.
Lai’s long-awaited trial under national security legislation imposed by China in 2020 opens in Hong Kong on Monday. He faces possible life imprisonment on charges he colluded with foreign forces, including the United States.
Lai, the founder of now-shuttered pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily and one of the most prominent Hong Kong critics of China’s Communist Party leadership, has faced a salvo of litigation since a wave of pro-democracy demonstrations in 2019.
He is already serving a 5-year, 9-month jail term for a fraud conviction over a lease dispute for his newspaper. Lai has pleaded not guilty to all charges he faces in his new trial.
Sebastien Lai, one of his sons, said in Taiwan’s capital Taipei that the trial, with three government-appointed judges and no jury, was a sham.