National security law: Jimmy Lai’s Hong Kong legal team distances itself from ‘international’ counterparts under fire from Beijing for meeting UK official

Local law firm Robertsons issued a statement on Friday night saying it acted exclusively for Lai in legal proceedings, stressing none of the Apple Daily founder’s legal advisers were associated with the international team in question.

“Mr Lai has never instructed anyone apart from his legal team in Hong Kong to act on his behalf in relation to his criminal and related proceedings in Hong Kong,” the firm stressed.

Lai, 75, set to stand trial in September on charges of foreign collusion, is at the centre of a political storm involving the use of foreign-based lawyers in national security proceedings. Beijing had earlier ruled in an interpretation of the related legislation that the city’s leader would decide on the matter.

In the latest development in the saga, Lai’s lawyers in the United Kingdom drew the ire of Beijing and Hong Kong authorities after a spokesman for UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told reporters in London on Tuesday that Anne-Marie Trevelyan, a junior minister from the foreign office, had met the tycoon’s team and pledged the government’s support for human rights.

Britain, after the meeting requested by Lai’s UK lawyers, reportedly called on Hong Kong to stop “targeting” the tycoon and said it had provided support to him.

News agency Reuters cited a British government spokesman as saying the UK would “always support rights and freedoms and the rule of law”, adding the country’s foreign office “has provided support for Jimmy Lai for some time” and that Trevelyan had met the tycoon’s legal team.