Update | Media mogul Jimmy Lai ‘spent HK$3.5m on Occupy Central vote’, leaked emails show
Leaked emails show tycoon privately dismissed organisers as idealists, while his media group helped with animated guide on resisting police
Media mogul Jimmy Lai Chee-ying spent millions helping Occupy Central to hold its unofficial referendum in June, leaked emails show.
Lai's Next Media group also offered extensive advice - including propaganda material - to the Occupy Central organisers - whom Lai dismissed in private as "idealist scholars" who "couldn't make the cut without help".
The emails were leaked by the same person who sent documents detailing the Next Media chairman's political donations to various pan-democrats two weeks ago. It is not clear how the documents were obtained.
One of the exchanges between Lai and his top aide Mark Simon shows that Lai spent some HK$3 million to HK$3.5 million to help the plebiscite. The email did not detail how the money was spent, only mentioning that the costs included "advertisements and billboards".
Jimmy Lai could not be reached for comment. Mark Simon declined to comment.
In an email dated July 5, 2013, Lai turned down advice from Ip Yut-kin, an executive director of Next Media, that neither he nor the media group should be involved in the Occupy Central campaign, in case the issue became "more complicated" because of Lai's anti-China stance.
