Lawyers acting for Hong Kong pro-democracy media magnate Jimmy Lai, who is currently standing trial under a draconian security law that cracks down on dissent, have appealed to the United Nations to investigate, saying a key witness for the prosecution was tortured before "confessing" to conspiring with Lai.
Lai's international legal team at London's Doughty Street Chambers lodged the appeal with the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment over the treatment of Andy Li, among a group of 12 Hong Kong protesters captured by China's Coast Guard as they tried to flee to democratic Taiwan by speedboat.
"Credible evidence is emerging that Andy Li was tortured when in prison in China before confessing to allegedly conspiring with Jimmy Lai to collude with foreign entities to endanger national security," Lai's lawyers said in a statement on Jan. 4.
"Andy Li’s evidence against Jimmy Lai – which it is suspected was coerced and obtained after he endured torture, inhuman and degrading treatment in Chinese detention, with the knowledge of the Hong Kong authorities – is central to the prosecution’s case," it said.
Defense team leader and Kings Counsel Caoilfhionn Gallagher said there are grave concerns that Li's testimony against Lai was "coerced," and that his legal team are arguing that it should be discarded.
"International law prohibits reliance on evidence derived through torture, inhuman or degrading treatment," she said. "Such statements are involuntary, inherently unreliable, violate the right to a fair trial, and reliance upon them indirectly legitimises torture and taints the justice system."
Prosecutors at Lai's ongoing trial appear to be relying on Andy Li's testimony as a key plank in the case against Lai, Gallagher said.
"The Chinese and Hong Kong authorities have so far failed to investigate these concerns, and in any event how could they credibly mark their own homework?" she said. "They must now answer to the United Nations."
‘Collusion with foreign forces’
Replying on Friday to requests for comment from Reuters and the Chinese-language Ming Pao newspaper, a Hong Kong government spokesman said it "strongly condemns and firmly opposes" the initiative by Lai's legal team, which it said was designed "to abuse the United Nations mechanisms to interfere with the judicial proceedings".
Amnesty International listed Li and the other speedboat fugitives as being at "imminent risk of torture and other ill-treatment" after their arrest on Aug. 23, 2020, after which they were held in incommunicado detention.
Following his handover to authorities in Hong Kong, Li pleaded guilty to charges of "collusion with foreign forces" alongside Lai in August 2021, after being accused of "conspiring" with Lai's aide Mark Simon and activist Finn Lau, now in exile, to ask foreign governments to impose sanctions on Hong Kong.
In May 2021, Li's family raised concerns that he was being secretly held in the maximum security Siu Lam Psychiatric Centre following his return to Hong Kong from Chinese custody. The center has a history of alleged abuses against inmates, according to media reports at the time.
Meanwhile, the London-based rights group Hong Kong Watch called on the British government to impose sanctions on Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee, in connection with the naming of its members as "collaborators" or "co-conspirators" in Lai's national security trial.
Hong Kong Watch’s co-founder and Chief Executive Benedict Rogers, the Executive Director of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, or IPAC, Luke de Pulford, and Bill Browder, a financier and human rights campaigner who pioneered the introduction of Magnitsky sanctions worldwide – all British nationals – were among those named.
In a letter for Foreign Secretary David Cameron, the six Hong Kong Watch Patrons called Magnitsky-style sanctions on Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee, including asset freezes and a travel ban.
"John Lee has been, and continues to be, involved in activities which amount to a serious violation of the right not to be subjected to torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment and punishment," the letter said, pointing to Lee's involvement in the transnational repression of prominent Hong Kong activists in exile.
Edited by Luisetta Mudie and Malcolm Foster.