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Dec. 10 (UPI) -- Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai on Saturday was sentenced to five years and seven months in prison after being convicted on two counts of fraud. A Hong Kong district court said that the 75-year-old breached land lease terms by deliberately concealing a consultancy firm at the offices of his now-defunct Apple Daily newspaper.
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Judge Stanley Chan Kwong-chi said Lai had played a significant role in deceiving the publication's landowner under the cover of a "fairly sizeable and reputable" news outlet, the South China Morning Post reported.
"If a media organization, representing the so-called fourth power, allowed a firm to occupy its space without authorization to carry out its businesses, was it not that such organization did so under the aegis of its reputation as the media?" the judge asked.
The case against Lai has increased concerns about diminishing press freedom in Hong Kong.
Several pro-democracy media outlets closed after the introduction of a strict security law, which has been used to jail much of the city's political opposition.
Hong Kong has fallen 68 places from a year earlier to No. 148 in Reporters Without Borders' most recent World Press Freedom Index.
"Illegal demonstration, fraud, national security crimes -- the diversity of the charges against Jimmy Lai, and the staggering severity of the sentences imposed on him, show how desperate the Chinese regime is to silence this symbolic figure of press freedom in Hong Kong," Reporters Without Borders bureau head Cédric Alviani said Saturday.
Lai is already serving 20 months for his role in unauthorized assemblies during 2019 anti-government protests. The pro-democracy activist also faces charges under the national security law, including conspiracy to collude with foreign forces.
After the ruling, Lai must also pay a $256,850 fine and he is banned from managing companies for eight years.
