Prime minister Keir Starmer has been urged to press for British citizen Jimmy Lai's immediate release over his failing health inside a Hong Kong prison.
The 77-year-old pro-democracy campaigner and founder of the now-shuttered Apple Daily newspaper on Monday denied allegations of requesting the US to sanction China for imposing a security law as prosecutors wrapped up their 24-day-long cross examination.
The media tycoon is facing the prospect of life in prison if found guilty of sedition and collusion with foreign powers under the city’s national security law. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
His son, Sebastien Lai, told Sky News that he has written to Sir Keir asking for a meeting with the prime minister over his father's condition.
Mr Lai suffers from diabetes and has lost a significant amount of weight, his son said, adding that his father has been kept in solitary confinement since 2021. Mr Lai has been denied independent medical care and is allowed out of his cell for 50 minutes a day, according to his lawyers and media reports.
Although Sir Keir has previously raised Mr Lai's case with Chinese president Xi Jinping, Sebastien Lai claims the prime minister needs to urgently push for his father's release. "He's still strong mentally and spiritually," he told the broadcaster. "But he's in the body of a 77-year-old, and it's just one of those situations where we can't wait."
Sebastien Lai argued that his father's case was a "litmus test" for the British government and a meeting with Mr Keir would show that No 10 was treating the media tycoon's case with "utmost priority". "It would take less than three hours for them to put him on a plane and send him back home to the UK," he said.
"So if they're not even willing to do something like this in such a clear-cut case, where he might very well die in jail, then what else can we expect from them?" he asked.
On the 50th day of the marathon trial, the prosecution in Hong Kong flagged an exchange between Lai and his aide Mark Simon a day after Donald Trump during his first presidency abolished Hong Kong's special status in 2020. In that exchange on Signal app, Mr Simon relayed a question from Mary Kissel, a senior adviser to then US secretary of state Mike Pompeo, to understand Mr Lai's position on US-Hong Kong relations.
Mr Lai told the court that his reply revealed his thinking at that time and denied the suggestion that he wished the US suspension of Hong Kong’s special status would last, Hong Kong Free Press reported.
While he admitted that Mr Simon would relay the message to the White House, but argued it didn't constitute a direct request for Washington to impose sanctions. “I was asked a question, and I answered the question,” he told the court.
In his reply to Mr Simon, the defendant had written: "I said that it’s not necessary to revoke the special status of HK because with national security law HK is finished anyway. The point is not HK (Hong Kong) but China. Sanction China as to stop it from clamping down on HK."
Mr Lai said he was hoping for protection of human rights in Hong Kong and denied urging the US to engage in hostile activities against mainland China. “I think that… freedom and human rights are, you know, a birthright for us,” he said. “It’s just very logical for me to suggest that.”
He further denied all allegations of conspiracies as “totally rubbish”, which he claimed the prosecutors “just made it up”.
