Hong Kong: Hong Kong pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai was awarded jail sentence of five years and nine months after being found guilty of fraud in a contractual dispute.
Lai had recently completed a 20-month jail term resulting from multiple convictions for his part in protests and unauthorised assemblies.
While the earlier convictions were related to his role in the huge democracy protests that swept Hong Kong in 2019, the latest case involved one of his companies violating the terms of the lease on his newspaper’s offices.
Lai and former Apple Daily executive Wong Wai-keung were both found guilty of fraud in October in what District Judge Stanley Chan described as a “planned, organised and years-long” scheme.
Prosecutors said that a consultancy firm Lai operated for his personal use had taken up office space that Apple Daily had rented for the purposes of publication and printing.
