'I'm not a spy', says Jimmy Lai's right-hand man Mark Simon
Mark Simon says his US intelligence links are in the distant past. His focus now is on helping Jimmy Lai seek change … while turning a profit
"My dad was CIA for 35 years"; "My internship with CIA, four years with naval intelligence…"; "[Next Media] work on human rights cases and have regular fights with many non-democratic regimes in Asia."
Comments like these in leaked correspondence and job-application letters from Mark Simon offer a rare glimpse into his background and that of his employer; insights some media have used to portray the American as a "man of mystery" with ties to the US Central Intelligence Agency.
Simon, 50, is a senior executive at Next Media Group, which is controlled by Jimmy Lai Chee-ying, a strident and unrelenting critic of the Communist Party and the Hong Kong government. It is no secret that Beijing does not like Lai. Simon, as his closest aide, is also a target for attacks by the Beijing-loyalist camp.
A report in the July 23 edition of pro-communist daily Ta Kung Pao was headlined: "Jimmy Lai's close aide is ex-spy."
Simon shrugs off any such insinuation.
"[I am a] man of mystery to anyone who doesn't read my columns in Next [ Magazine], the WSJ [ Wall Street Journal], and hear me bellow on RTHK," he says in an emailed reply to the South China Morning Post.
"I have never made any secret that I worked for the US Navy. I am proud of it. But I left the navy in 1991 and [have] never been in pay, association, or employed in any intelligence work for any government since then. Also, on the stolen emails alone, if I am a spy, I am really pretty damn bad at it," adds Simon.