British QC pulls out of Hong Kong case against activists amid ‘pressure’

Prosecutor David Perry had faced criticism from British politicians 

Credit: AFP

A British QC hired by the Hong Kong government to lead a case against tabloid media magnate Jimmy Lai and several other democracy activists has pulled out after coming under pressure in Britain, the city’s Department of Justice said on Wednesday.

David Perry QC was being brought in to handle the trial of Lai, a publisher and high-profile critic of the Chinese state, and eight other campaigners accused of organising an illegal anti-government march.

Lee Cheuk-yan, the organiser of the annual Tiananmen Square vigil in Hong Kong, Martin Lee Chu-ming, a Hong Kong politician and barrister who is the founding chairman of the United Democrats of Hong Kong and its successor, the Democratic Party, Hong Kong’s flagship pro-democracy party and is known as the territory’s ‘Father of Democracy’, and veteran activist ‘Long Hair’ Leung Kwok-hung are among the defendants.

All of the accused have been charged with organising an unauthorised assembly, and knowingly taking part in an unauthorised assembly on August 18, 2019.

Lai has since been charged with offences under the city’s sweeping new national security law, sparking foreign condemnation.

The Department of Justice noted "growing pressure and criticism" of Mr Perry within Britain for taking the case.

Mr Perry, a Queen’s Counsel, had "concerns about such pressures and the exemption of quarantine" and "indicated that the trial should proceed without him", the department said in a statement.

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab told Sky TV in an interviewer on Sunday that Perry had handed the Chinese government a "PR coup" and had behaved in a "pretty mercenary way".

Former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith, co-chairman of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (Ipac), was blunt in his appraisal: “It’s appalling.”

The British barrister, who practises at the London chambers 6KBW College Hill, has taken part in a number of high profile cases in Hong Kong.

He has also appeared for the UK Government at the European Court of Human Rights.

Mr Perry could not immediately be reached for comment. The department said it had hired another lawyer to prosecute the case.

It is not yet known if that lawyer is also foreign. Under Hong Kong’s independent Common Law-based legal system, foreign lawyers are sometimes used by both the defence and prosecution sides in cases.

Lai, 73, owns the Apple Daily — which has a reputation of being fiercely critical of the city government — and is the highest profile figure to be charged under the national security law that Beijing imposed on the city on June 30 last year after months of pro-democracy protests across the global financial hub.

The law sets out tough punishment for terrorism, subversion and colluding with foreign forces while allowing some suspects to be taken to mainland China for trial in complex cases.

Critics say the law threatens the vaunted judicial independence in the former British colony.