Hong Kong’s Jimmy Lai told assistant to promote Apple Daily to mobilise ‘international front’ against mainland China, court hears
- Prosecution witness tells court Lai’s assistant, Mark Simon, was asked to determine how Apple Daily could best promote English digital platform in US
- Ultimate goal was to garner international support for Lai and newspaper, she says
Ex-associate publisher Chan Pui-man on Tuesday said Mark Simon, Lai’s right-hand man and a former United States intelligence agent, was asked to determine how Apple Daily could best publicise its English-language digital platform in the US before its official launch in May 2020.
Chan said she believed Simon became the point of contact between Lai and foreign journalists as he often represented the tycoon in interviews with overseas news outlets.
“My guess is that because Mark Simon had more frequent contact or was more familiar with foreign media, [Lai] asked him to do some advertisements, that is to tell foreign media that [we] were working on an English edition,” said Chan, a defendant turned prosecution witness.
The ultimate goal was to garner international support for Lai and the newspaper he founded, she said, adding the mogul expected overseas countries to put pressure on China – by imposing sanctions, for example – if Apple Daily was suppressed.
Simon worked as a submarine analyst for US naval intelligence from 1987 to 1991. He arrived in Hong Kong in 2000 and gained permanent residency eight years later.
