Overview
- The court convicted Lai on two counts of conspiracy to collude with foreign forces and one count of publishing seditious materials, with reporters noting it is the toughest sentence yet under the law.
- Judges imposed a 20-year term with 18 years ordered to run consecutively after his existing fraud sentence.
- Lai denies all charges and describes himself as a political prisoner facing persecution from Beijing.
- Advocacy organizations call the term a de facto death sentence, pointing to his deteriorating health and about five years already spent in custody, much of it in solitary confinement.
- A direct appeal by the British Prime Minister to President Xi Jinping two weeks earlier was reported to have made no difference to the outcome.