Hong Kong’s Jimmy Lai told assistant to promote Apple Daily to mobilise ‘international front’ against mainland China, court hears
- Prosecution witness tells court Lai’s assistant, Mark Simon, was asked to determine how Apple Daily could best promote English digital platform in US
- Ultimate goal was to garner international support for Lai and newspaper, she says
Ex-associate publisher Chan Pui-man on Tuesday said Mark Simon, Lai’s right-hand man and a former United States intelligence agent, was asked to determine how Apple Daily could best publicise its English-language digital platform in the US before its official launch in May 2020.
Chan said she believed Simon became the point of contact between Lai and foreign journalists as he often represented the tycoon in interviews with overseas news outlets.
“My guess is that because Mark Simon had more frequent contact or was more familiar with foreign media, [Lai] asked him to do some advertisements, that is to tell foreign media that [we] were working on an English edition,” said Chan, a defendant turned prosecution witness.
The ultimate goal was to garner international support for Lai and the newspaper he founded, she said, adding the mogul expected overseas countries to put pressure on China – by imposing sanctions, for example – if Apple Daily was suppressed.
Simon worked as a submarine analyst for US naval intelligence from 1987 to 1991. He arrived in Hong Kong in 2000 and gained permanent residency eight years later.
Jimmy Lai trial told Hong Kong tycoon used political figures to back Apple Daily
Lai, 76, has denied two conspiracy charges of collusion with foreign forces under the Beijing-decreed national security law, as well as a third count of conspiracy to print and distribute seditious publications, an offence under colonial-era legislation.
Prosecutors are seeking to establish a case that Lai had full control over Apple Daily, including its editorial policy, and used the media outlet to facilitate his political agenda.
Lai, in a series of WhatsApp messages to editorial staff dated May 2020, stressed the English platform should focus on selected news stories about China to woo top overseas politicians, such as then-US vice-president Mike Pence.
“Enlisting foreign leaders to subscribe to us is enlisting their support,” he said. “They of course understand it and that is why they would do it. Now is a good time to appeal to them when the English version is launched.”
West Kowloon Court heard that Lai instructed Apple Daily staff to focus on “certain” aspects of Chinese news on the English platform, such as the country’s civil rights movement and the alleged police violence in Hong Kong.
Chan said the tycoon had placed great emphasis on producing news stories different from those of the South China Morning Post, the city’s major English newspaper.
‘Hong Kong’s Lai told Apple Daily to play up Beijing’s alleged Covid cover-up’
Editor-in-chief Ryan Law Wai-kwong, who oversaw Apple Daily’s digital content, suggested engaging young residents to write English commentaries for the newspaper so that they could develop their own narratives about Hong Kong on the world stage.
Other proposed ways to publicise Apple Daily overseas included adding English subtitles to Apple Daily’s news videos and providing news digests in English on social media, the court heard.
He argued Apple Daily ran the story at the request of Lai, who sent a copy of Rogers’ written statement to Chan and asked her to consider publishing it. Chan replied that the statement would be published in the form of news.
“How is this news, if I may ask you?” Cheung said.
The witness said: “Because Mr Lai appeared desperate and asked me to handle it expeditiously, so I felt that why not write a news report on Benedict Rogers’s opinion?”
Hong Kong’s Jimmy Lai told Apple Daily not to target Donald Trump, court hears
She acknowledged the story, headlined “Rogers: The Most Terrible Mother’s Day”, might not have appeared on the third page of Apple Daily’s Hong Kong section had it not been for Lai’s suggestion that the tabloid feature the views of the Briton.
On a separate note, Chan said she regretted being unable to ensure the safety of her junior colleagues after national security police arrested her and other senior executives on June 17, 2021, a week before the tabloid published its final edition.
“So my opinion was that Apple Daily should fold [after my arrest],” she said in response to a question on a different matter.
“I couldn’t guarantee [the safety of] my colleagues, when they asked me whether [Apple Daily] would continue running and whether [they] would be arrested. I couldn’t offer them that guarantee.”
Her testimony was cut short by Madam Justice Esther Toh Lye-ping, one of the three judges hearing the case, who found the discussion had gone astray.
The trial continues on Wednesday.
