Hong Kong court rejects activist Jimmy Lai's bid to have a jury trial for libel case

HONG KONG — 

A Hong Kong tribunal rejected jailed steadfast Jimmy Lai 's petition to person a assemblage proceedings for his libel lawsuit against a pro-Beijing paper Thursday, the latest setback for the activistic who suffered aggregate blows successful different ineligible battles.

Lai, the laminitis of the now-defunct Apple Daily newspaper, is 1 of the city's starring activists who was prosecuted nether a sweeping nationalist information instrumentality during Beijing's crackdown connected dissent. He has been the taxable of disapproval by pro-Beijing media outlets for years.

The 76-year-old brought the lawsuit against Ta Kung Pao successful 2020, alleging that the work had maliciously suggested helium was readying to illegally abscond from the metropolis and would breach his bail condition.

On Thursday, justice Queeny Au Yeung ruled against Lai's bid, saying the lawsuit requires a prolonged introspection of documents.

"(It) is not suitable for assemblage proceedings and plainly not suitable for putting lone 1 oregon immoderate questions to the jury, leaving the remainder to the proceedings judge," she wrote successful her judgment.

The libel lawsuit centered connected an nonfiction published by Ta Kung Pao headlined "Leaders who make chaos successful Hong Kong plotting escape, flight way exposed, complaint 1 cardinal dollars" connected June 25, 2020. The nonfiction named Lai arsenic a imaginable fishy who intended to abscond and evade transgression liability.

The insubstantial denied the libel charge.

Many of Hong Kong's astir salient activists were arrested, forced into self-exile oregon silenced since the 2020 information instrumentality came into force. Lai's Apple Daily was unopen down aft the arrests of its apical absorption successful 2021. The closure was wide seen arsenic an erosion of freedoms that were promised erstwhile the erstwhile British colony returned to Chinese regularisation successful 1997.

Lai has suffered setbacks successful his landmark information trial. Last December, judges rejected his bid to propulsion retired a sedition complaint against him. The tribunal past twelvemonth besides refused to overturn Hong Kong nationalist information authorities' determination to artifact him from hiring seasoned British lawyer Timothy Owen. Lai volition attest successful tribunal successful his defence for that information proceedings adjacent month.

Lai is present serving a jailhouse word of implicit 5 years aft being convicted successful a abstracted fraud case. He has been successful custody since December 2020.

The U.S. and U.K. governments person called for Lai's merchandise and person criticized the information law, which the Beijing and Hong Kong governments accidental is indispensable for the city's stability.