A Hong Kong court dismissed on Thursday a bid by the legal team for jailed democrat Jimmy Lai to end his national security trial, saying prosecutors appeared to have sufficient evidence to support all three charges against him.
Lai, 76, the founder of now-shuttered pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily, has pleaded not guilty to two charges of conspiracy to collude with foreign forces and a lesser charge of conspiracy to publish seditious material.
"Having considered all the submissions, we ruled that the first defendant (Lai) has a case to answer on all the charges," said Judge Esther Toh, one of a panel of three national security judges hearing the case.