Former Hong Kong media boss Jimmy Lai Chee-ying has admitted trying to win a court’s permission for him to travel to the United States five years ago by withholding “politically sensitive” information about his plan to meet the nation’s vice-president.
The admission appeared to contradict his earlier denial that he had deliberately concealed his intended meeting with then US No 2 official Mike Pence when he applied to the High Court to relax his bail conditions during an unrelated criminal case in June 2020, three weeks before the enactment of the national security law in the same month.
The defendant said in re-examination he believed his intended visit to the White House would have complicated matters.
“I think the major reason for me to travel is to see my granddaughter, and to be honest, at that time it was not illegal to see the US official, but I was afraid that that would be too politically sensitive,” the founder of the now-defunct Apple Daily newspaper told West Kowloon Court.
Lai is standing trial on two conspiracy charges of collusion with foreign forces and a third of conspiracy to print and distribute seditious publications.
