AN IRISH LAWYER who represented media mogul and prominent critic of Beijing, Jimmy Lai, has strongly condemned a 20-year prison sentence handed down to him by a Hong Kong court. 

Lai was prosecuted for his work as the editor and publisher of the pro-democracy paper Apple Daily on the grounds of the controversial ‘National Security Law’. 

Well known Irish Barrister Caoilfhionn Gallagher led an international team that represented him in the proceedings. 

Today she said that the sentence given to the 78-year-old “prisoner of conscience” is a “stain” on Hong Kong’s legal system. 

Gallagher said that the proceedings had been a “show trial from the start”, and that the sentence was the “final blow to the rule of law in Hong Kong”. 

“Sentencing Jimmy Lai – already aged 78 – to two decades behind bars is an affront to justice, and the culmination of over five years of malicious lawfare against a courageous, elderly British citizen and prisoner of conscience.

“Now that this sham trial is finally over, we call on leaders from around the world to speak with one voice in their demand for China to free Jimmy Lai so he can come home to his family in London at last,” she further said. 

Sebastian Lai, centre, son of Jimmy Lai, with Fiona O'Brien, left, UK Bureau Director for Reporters Without Borders and Caoilfhionn Gallagher KC. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

Lai, a British citizen, has long advocated for democracy and the rule of law in Hong Kong. 

This morning British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper called on the Hong Kong authorities to release Lai. 

“I again call on the Hong Kong authorities to end his appalling ordeal and release him on humanitarian grounds, so that he may be reunited with his family. We stand with the people of Hong Kong,” she said. 

Meanwhile the leader of Hong Kong John Lee Ka-chiu celebrated Lai’s sentencing, and said that his crimes were “heinous”. 

“For a long time, Lai used Apple Daily to poison the minds of citizens, incite hatred, distort facts, deliberately create social division, glorify violence, and openly beg external forces to sanction China and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region,” Lee wrote on Facebook this afternoon. 

The head of Hong Kong’s police, Steve Li, said that Lai’s sentence was “appropriate”. 

Lai’s sentence is the heaviest handed down under the premise of this law in Hong Kong so far. 

It means that Lai is facing life in prison. 

Jimmy's Lai's wife Teresa Lai outside West Kowloon Magistrates Courts after the sentencing of media tycoon Jimmy Lai in Hong Kong. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

Similar proceedings have taken place in mainland China against influential people who have challenged the state, and the rule of Xi Jinping’s Chinese Communist Party. 

Media outlets owned by the Communist Party in the city had already declared that Lai was guilty before the sentence was handed down. 

Thomas Kellogg, the director of the Georgetown Centre for Asian Law has called the sentence “incredibly cruel”. 

“In case after case, the courts have given Beijing what it has demanded. This draconian sentence is no exception,” he further said. 

Besides Lai, a number of his former colleagues were also sentenced including Ryan Law Wai-kwong, Lam Man-chung, Fung Wai-kong, Yeung Ching-kee, Chan Pui-man, and Cheung Kim-hung. 

They were given lesser but still substantial sentences.