The media tycoon, who was first arrested in 2020, could face life in prison in blow for press freedom following conviction in December

Jimmy Lai, the Hong Kong media tycoon and pro-democracy figure, is set to be sentenced on Monday in the financial hub’s most high-profile national security case, amid growing calls to free the longstanding critic of the Chinese Communist party whose health is frail.

The sentence comes after a legal saga spanning almost five years for the founder of the now-shuttered Apple Daily newspaper after he was convicted in December of two counts of conspiracy to collude with foreign forces and one count of publishing seditious materials. He was first arrested in 2020.

Sentencing guidelines under the national security law stipulate that Lai, who was deemed a “mastermind” of a conspiracy to engage with foreign activists, politicians and others to solicit foreign sanctions against Hong Kong and China, could come under the most severe penalty “band” of 10 years to life imprisonment for offences of a “grave nature”.