Hong Kong Media Baron Jimmy Lai Denied Bail in Fraud Case

HONG KONG––Media mogul Jimmy Lai faces months in jail right after a Hong Kong court on Thursday denied him bail while awaiting demo on a fraud charge, the newest in a procession of China critics to be set behind bars.

Police on Wednesday charged Mr. Lai and two aides with fraud similar to the lease of a house, about three months right after a large-profile raid involving national-security police on the workplaces of his professional-democracy newspaper, Apple Day by day.

Mr. Lai has very long been a focus on of Chinese officers for his rhetoric in opposition to Beijing. Prosecutors reported the national-security investigation is continuing and opposed bail for the seventy three-calendar year-aged, in accordance to local media. Magistrate Victor So Wai-tak declined bail while placing the up coming court overall look for April sixteen, which means Mr. Lai will be held for 4½ months in prison. Cheung Kim-hung, the main executive of Apple Day by day mother or father Upcoming Digital, reported Mr. Lai will enchantment.

The conclusion arrives a day right after Joshua Wong, a primary experience of Hong Kong’s protest motion, was sentenced to more than a calendar year in prison for inciting and organizing a demonstration past calendar year. Fellow activists Agnes Chow and Ivan Lam were being also given prison sentences.

The indictment in opposition to Mr. Lai and Upcoming Digital senior executives Chow Tat-kuen and Wong Wai-keung alleges that a house leased by an Apple Day by day-affiliated corporation from a Hong Kong governing administration entity hadn’t been utilized as intended, and the trio were being in breach of the lease. Messrs. Chow and Wong were being both of those granted bail, while Mr. Lai was not.