Six former executives at Apple Daily have pleaded guilty to collusion. Apple Daily is a former pro-democracy newspaper in Hong Kong. The staff members were arrested last year.
Six former executives of apro-democracy newspaper on Tuesday pleaded guilty to a collusion charge under the National Security Law that has silenced and jailed most opposition voices in the southern Chinese territory.
The law criminalizes acts of succession, subversion, terrorism, and collusion with foreign forces. Its maximum penalty is life imprisonment. But the six were expected to receive lesser penalties because of their guilty pleas.
Lai and the three companies were expected to plead not guilty to their charge and their trial is scheduled to start Dec. 1. If convicted, Lai faces life imprisonment. If the companies are convicted, they could be fined and the proceeds obtained from the crime confiscated. Local journalists and former Apple Daily staff were among the spectators, with some waving at the defendants before and after the hearing.Police took away hard drives and laptops as evidence in a raid at Apple Daily's offices in June 2021, sending shockwaves across the city's media. The arrests of top executives, editors and journalists at the paper, as well as the freezing of $2.3 million worth of assets, led it to cease its operations. It sold a million copies of its final edition.
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