Hong Kong media owner Jimmy Lai jailed for fraud

Hong Kong pro-democracy media owner Jimmy Lai received a fresh jail sentence of five years and nine months on Saturday after being found guilty of fraud in a contractual dispute.

Lai, the 75-year-old founder of the now-shuttered Apple Daily newspaper, had recently completed a 20-month jail term resulting from multiple convictions for his part in protests and unauthorised assemblies.

He also faces a possible life sentence at his coming trial on national security charges.

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.

This was in breach of the terms of the lease Apple Daily signed with a government company and amounted to fraud, prosecutors said.

Defence lawyers previously argued the case should have been a civil suit instead of a criminal prosecution, adding that the square footage involved was minimal.

In addition to his jail term, Lai was fined HK$2m ($257,000) and banned from managing companies for eight years.

But he said the case had nothing to do with politics or press freedom.

It collapsed last year after its funds were frozen and many of its senior staff were charged alongside Lai under the sweeping national security law Beijing imposed on Hong Kong, primarily over their campaign for international sanctions against China.