Who is Jimmy Lai, the HK media tycoon in trial for national security crimes?

Hailed by some as a hero and despised by others as a traitor, the Magnat of the pro-democracy media of Hong Kong, Jimmy Lai, is at the last stage of his national security trial.

The closing arguments begin Thursday for Lai, accused of ending with foreign forces under a law on national security imposed by Beijing.

The trial drew international attention, the British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer calling for the Liberation of Lai. The 77 -year -old man has British and Chinese citizenship – although China does not recognize dual nationality and therefore considers Lai as exclusively Chinese.

Lai has been held since December 2020 and faces a maximum imprisonment of perpetuity if he is convicted.

Critics say that the case of Lai shows how the legal system of Hong Kong was armed to silence the political opposition.

Lai was a persistent thorn on the Chinese side. Unlike other magnates that have reached the summit in Hong Kong, Mr. Lai has become one of the most ferocious criticism of the Chinese state and a leading figure advocating democracy in the former British territory.

“I am a born rebel,” he told the BBC in an interview in 2020, a few hours before being charged. “I have a very rebellious character.”

He is the most eminent person charged under controversial national security law that China introduced in 2020, in response to massive demonstrations that broke out in Hong Kong the previous year.

Legislation criminalizes a wider range of dissident acts than Beijing considers subversion and secession, among others.

Beijing says that the National Security Act is necessary to maintain stability in Hong Kong, but criticisms say that it has indeed prohibited dissent.

Over the years, Lai’s son, Sebastien, called for his release. In February, the youngest Lai urged Starmer and US President Donald Trump to take urgent measures, adding that his father’s “body is broken down”.

Lai was born in Guangzhou, a city in southern China, in a rich family that lost everything when the Communists took power in 1949.

He was 12 years old when he fled his village in continental China, arriving in Hong Kong as clandestinity on a fishing boat.

While working in odd jobs and knitting in a small clothing store, he learned in English. It has gone from a subordinate role to finally found an empire of several million dollars, including the international clothing brand Giordano.

The chain was a huge success. But when China sent tanks to crush pro-democracy demonstrations on Pékin Tiananmen square in 1989, Lai began a new trip as an activist for vocal democracy as well as entrepreneur.

He started writing columns criticizing the massacre that followed the Beijing demonstrations and established a publishing house which has become one of the most influential in Hong Kong.

While China reacted by threatening to close its stores on the continent, which led it to sell the company, Lai launched a series of popular pro-democracy titles which included Next, a digital magazine and the Apple Daily newspaper, widely read.

In an increasingly fearing local media landscape of Beijing, Lai had been a persistent critic of the Chinese authorities both by his publications and to writing.

This saw him become a hero for many in Hong Kong, who considers him as a man of courage who has taken great risks to defend the freedoms of the city.

But on the continent, he is considered a “traitor” which threatens Chinese national security.

In recent years, masked attackers have burned the house and the company’s headquarters. He was also the target of an assassination plot.

But none of the threats prevented her from spreading her robust views. There was an important part of the city’s pro-democracy demonstrations and was arrested twice in 2021 for accusations of illegal assembly.

When China adopted the new Hong Kong National Security Act in June 2020, Lai told the BBC that it had sounded the “death of death” for the territory.

The influential entrepreneur also warned that Hong Kong would become as corrupt as China. Without the rule of law, he said, his status coveted as a global financial center would be “completely destroyed”.

The media tycoon is known for its frankness and its acts of flamboyance.

In 2021, he urged Donald Trump to help the territory, saying that he was “the only one who can save us” from China. His newspaper, Apple Daily, published a first-page letter which finished: “Mr. President, please help us.”

For Lai, such acts were necessary to defend the city which had taken it and fueled its success.

He told the AFP news agency once: “I came here without anything, the freedom of this place gave me everything … Maybe it’s time that I reimbursed for this freedom by fighting for that.”

Lai has been slapped with various accusations – including the assembly and unauthorized fraud – since 2020.

He has been in detention since December of the same year.

Lai’s accusation drew international attention, defense groups and foreign governments urging his release.

Over the years, Sébastien Lai has traveled the world to denounce the arrest of his father and condemn Hong Kong for having punished the “characteristics that should be celebrated”.

“My father is in prison for the truth about his lips, his courage in his heart and his freedom in his soul,” he said.