Jimmy Lai slapped with extra count of fraud ahead of trial
Media tycoon accused of breaching land-lease terms over use of Apple Daily’s office space
Prosecutors have slapped jailed media tycoon Jimmy Lai Chee-ying with an extra count of fraud ahead of his trial alongside a former Apple Daily executive over the use of the defunct newspaper’s office space.
Lai, 74, and former chief administrative officer Wong Wai-keung, 60, initially faced a joint count of fraud for allegedly defrauding a government-owned enterprise by breaching the landlease terms for their publication’s headquarters in Hong Kong over a four-year span.
But prosecutors opted to strike Lai with an extra count of fraud, as they alleged the illegal scheme had dated back more than two decades, after the opposition-leaning newspaper moved offices to Tseung Kwan O.
The pair were initially scheduled for a trial at the District Court yesterday, but Wong’s lawyers revealed they were still in the process of requesting further details from the prosecutors about the defendants’ roles in the alleged offence, adding they had taken issue with the wording of the charges.
Judge Stanley Chan Kwongchi adjourned the case until next Tuesday to allow all parties to settle the matters in contention and prepare trial documents.
Lai, founder of Apple Daily’s parent company Next Digital, was originally accused of improperly subleasing office space at Apple Daily Printing Limited to a secretarial firm over a four-year span between June 2016 and May 2020.
The new allegations claim that Lai had committed the offence since April 1998, soon after the publication relocated offices from Cheung Sha Wan to Tseung Kwan O Industrial Estate.
Prosecutors argued Lai had continued to breach the terms of two land leases, dated 1995 and 1999, provided by the Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation, over a period of 22 years.
The fraudulent scheme, in which Wong allegedly became involved in 2016, had enabled Dico Consultants Limited to evade land premiums, while Next Digital also earned rent from the company, the prosecutors claimed.
The initial charge also involved Next Digital’s chief operating officer Royston Chow Tat-kuen, but prosecutors opted for a separate trial for the 64-year-old after the conclusion of Lai and Wong’s case.
In an earlier court session, prosecutors requested Lai’s trial be presided over by a judge handpicked to oversee national security cases by the city leader, even though fraud did not constitute such an offence.
They argued that a designated judge, a role which was introduced under the Beijing-imposed national security law in June 2020, could better foresee any potential challenges to the prosecution’s case.
Chan, a designated judge, took over the case after the defence raised no objection.
Fraud is punishable by up to seven years in jail when the case is heard before a judge of the District Court.