00:00Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai will not appeal his conviction in 20-year jail term for collusion
00:05with foreign forces and sedition. A member of his domestic legal team says there are clear
00:10and definitive instructions not to lodge an appeal against conviction or sentence but gave no reason
00:15for the decision. The founder of the now shuttered pro-democracy Apple Daily newspaper was one of the
00:21most outspoken critics of the ruling Chinese Communist Party. Lai was among many activists
00:26arrested in the aftermath of Hong Kong's 2019 pro-democracy protests. The 78-year-old British
00:32citizen has denied all the charges against him and calls himself a political prisoner facing
00:36persecution from Beijing. He was sentenced in February after a December conviction on two
00:41counts of conspiracy to collude with foreign forces and one count of publishing seditious materials.
00:47Last month, in a separate case, Hong Kong's Court of Appeal overturned his conviction for fraud and
00:52quashed a 69-month sentence. Right groups in numerous democratic countries have called for Lai's
00:58release.
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