6 former Hong Kong newspaper employees plead guilty to collusion charge

Hong Kong:

Six former employees of Hong Kong’s former pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily pleaded guilty on Tuesday to conspiring to collide with foreign forces in a closely watched national security case.

The six pleaded guilty to conspiring with media mogul Jimmy Lai and others to ask a country or foreign organization ‘to impose sanctions or a blockade, or engage in other activities hostilities” against the governments of Hong Kong and China between July 2020 and June 2021.

Among the six are Cheung Kim-hung, who was managing director of the newspaper’s former owner, Next Digital, former Apple Daily associate editor Chan Pui-man, former editor Ryan Law, former executive editor Lam Man-chung, former English editor Fung Wai-kong and former columnist Yeung Ching-kee.

In one of the former British colony’s biggest national security cases, Lai and the six former Apple Daily staffers have been charged with conspiracy to collide with foreign forces under the new security law imposed by Beijing in 2020.

A fierce critic of Beijing, Lai, who is already in jail after being convicted for his role in an unlawful assembly in 2020, faces multiple charges under national security law. His messy legal proceedings are likely to drag on next year, some legal analysts say.

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