The high-profile national security trial against jailed media tycoon Jimmy Lai will be further postponed to late September next year, a Hong Kong court said Tuesday.
The trial for the founder of the now defunct pro-democracy Apple Daily newspaper was initially slated to begin on Dec. 1 but was delayed earlier this month after Hong Kong leader John Lee intervened in the proceedings.
Lee asked China's top legislative body in Beijing to determine whether overseas counsels should be allowed to partake in national security trials, saying such lawyers are not fully qualified to practice law in Hong Kong.
The request was made just hours after the city's top court upheld a decision to allow veteran British lawyer Timothy Owen to represent the former media tycoon in the highly anticipated trial.
The trial is now scheduled for Sept. 23 to Nov. 21.
The 75-year-old is currently facing four charges, including two counts of conspiracy to collude with foreign forces and one count of collusion with foreign forces.
He further faces one count of conspiracy over "seditious publications" linked to Apple Daily, which was forced to end its operations in July 2021 following the freezing of its assets by authorities and arrests of some of its staff.
Lai, who has been in custody since December 2020, previously served a 20-month jail term on charges of unauthorized assembly for organizing pro-democracy protests in 2019 and for his involvement in a banned vigil commemorating the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests in 2020.
The former media mogul was further sentenced last Saturday to five years and nine months in prison after being found guilty of two fraud charges.
