Hong Kong media mogul Jimmy Lai’s lawyer clashed with judges on Thursday over whether the pro-democracy newspaper founder’s “armchair punditry” on social media and other platforms breached the city’s national security law.

The 77-year-old founder of the now-closed Apple Daily has pleaded not guilty to two counts of foreign collusion, with authorities accusing him of using various platforms to lobby Western nations to sanction China and Hong Kong.

The charges were brought under the city’s national security law, which Beijing imposed in 2020 after huge and sometimes violent pro-democracy protests in the finance hub the year before.

Lawyers are presenting their closing arguments in the trial, which began in December 2023.

Prosecutors have cited 161 articles, including op-eds carrying Lai’

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