Li became a prosecution witness after pleading guilty to conspiracy to collude with foreign forces in 2021.
He was a core member of the “Fight for Freedom, Stand with Hong Kong” (SWHK) lobbying group, which prosecutors alleged was sponsored by Lai to trigger sanctions and other hostile acts against Hong Kong and mainland China.
The programmer turned activist was also among 12 Hongkongers caught by the Chinese coastguard in 2020 in a case that attracted global attention and concerns over their treatment.Li told West Kowloon Court that the original plan was for him to surrender himself in Taiwan before hitchhiking to the Czech Republic upon his release, as it was expected his arrival at the former would coincide with a visit by a Czech official.
“It was said that there would be a Czech delegation to Taiwan, so I might be able to make it to the [delegation’s return] flight to the Czech Republic,” he said.
The activist was told to “find a way to go to London” after landing in Prague, the court heard.
Lai’s defence counsel, Marc Corlett, said a person called “T”, an alias for paralegal Wayland Chan Tsz-wah, had assured Li that arrangements would be made for him after Hong Kong police released him on bail on August 12 that year.The activist confirmed Corlett’s remarks.
Prosecutors earlier argued Chan was the middleman linking up the activist with Lai and relaying the latter’s instructions to further the tycoon’s anti-China conspiracy.
Li confirmed the defence’s claim that he was instructed to go to Tseung Kwan O on August 18 and was moved from one “safe house” to another while he took steps to avoid being tracked.
He also agreed he was told to take a Taiwan-bound speedboat in the early hours of August 23 and that his personal information had been sent in advance to the Mainland Affairs Council, Taiwan’s top cross-strait policy planner.
But the activist said he was unsure whether those instructions came from Chan or other allies.
Hong Kong activist ‘never took money’ from Jimmy Lai during lobbying effort
Li also learned Chan’s comrades were responsible for causing an explosion near a border control point in early 2020.The activist said Chan once blurted out an idea of engaging the Israeli army to help train radical protesters if they needed to establish a military for a government-in-exile, but added he did not know whether the paralegal was serious.Separately, Li agreed with the defence’s notion that he did not receive any instruction from Lai or his associates in relation to his work in SWHK or the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC), which advocated the imposition of sanctions against Hong Kong and the mainland.
Li said he decided to continue with his global lobbying efforts after the Beijing-imposed national security law took effect in June 2020 as he felt authorities would prosecute him anyway using the “vague” legislation.“Because at the time my suspicion was that I might have been labelled a political enemy by Beijing, so the regime would arrest and charge me by any means,” he told the court.
Two of three judges hearing the trial focused their questions on how Li managed to accumulate more than HK$4 million (US$510,600) in savings before switching to political activism.
The activist said he had worked as a software programmer for nearly a decade by 2019, adding he had received no money from IPAC for his volunteer work.
Prosecutors are expected to call Chan, who pleaded guilty to the same conspiracy charge targeting Li, as a witness when the trial resumes on Friday.
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