Hong Kong court delays media mogul Jimmy Lai's national security trial over health concerns
Lai, the founder of the now-shuttered Apple Daily, showed up in court visibly thinner on Friday morning for the start of closing arguments of his landmark national security case.
The hearing, which was already delayed on Thursday due to a major rainstorm, lasted roughly 15 minutes after the court heard about the 77-year-old's health conditions from his defense team.
Lai's defense lawyer Robert Pang SC told the judges that the Lai had 'some episodes that he felt he was collapsing' and had been experiencing palpitations.
Lai was given a medical check-up, but prison staff have yet to provide Lai with medication and a Holter monitor, a device to record his heart activity, Pang said.
Prosecutors said a team of medical professionals were on standby at the court Friday to address Lai's medical needs.
But judge Alex Lee said it was 'prudent' not to start until Lai's medical needs have been attended to, and adjourned the session to Monday.
Jimmy Lai's son Sebastien Lai told CNN ahead of the hearing that he was deeply concerned about his father's deteriorating health.
'He's 77 this year, turning 78 at the end of the year, any type of incarceration is incredibly worrying for his health, never mind the solitary confinement and the diabetes,' he said, calling his father's prolonged solitary confinement 'a form of torture.'
'And during the summer, Hong Kong goes up to 30, almost 40 degrees, and he's in a little concrete cell, so he bakes in there. We're incredibly worried about him.'
The Hong Kong government said it strongly condemns what it calls 'misleading statements' about the treatment of Jimmy Lai in custody.
'The remarks by Sebastien Lai regarding Lai Chee-ying's solitary confinement are completely fact-twisting, reflecting a malicious intention to smear and attack the HKSAR Government,' it said in a statement, adding Lai had requested his removal from general prison population.
The closing arguments are expected to take multiple days and it could be weeks, or even months, before the judges render their verdict.
Lai stands accused of two counts of colluding with foreign forces – a crime punishable by life in prison under the 2020 national security law imposed by Beijing – and a separate sedition charge. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
The outspoken founder of the now-shuttered Apple Daily – a fiercely pro-democracy tabloid newspaper known for years of blistering broadsides against the Chinese Communist party until its forced closure – Lai has become a symbol of Beijing's sweeping national security crackdown on the once-freewheeling financial hub.
US President Donald Trump has previously vowed to see him freed and confirmed in a Fox News radio interview on Thursday that Lai's ultimate fate was part of ongoing negotiations with Beijing.
'I'm going to be bringing it up, and I've already brought it up, and I'm going to do everything I can to save him,' Trump said.
'You can also understand, President Xi would not be exactly thrilled by doing it,' Trump said. 'With all of that being said, his name (has) already entered the circle of things that we're talking about, and we'll see what we can do.'
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Sweat-soaked and dust-covered, parents and children chase down water trucks that come every two or three days, filling bottles, canisters and buckets and then hauling them home, sometimes on donkey-drawn carts. Each drop is rationed for drinking, cooking, cleaning or washing. Some reuse what they can and save a couple of cloudy inches in their jerrycans for whatever tomorrow brings — or doesn't. When water fails to arrive, Odeh said, she and her son fill bottles from the sea. Over the 22 months since Israel launched its offensive, Gaza's water access has been progressively strained. Limits on fuel imports and electricity have hampered the operation of desalination plants while infrastructure bottlenecks and pipeline damage choked delivery to a dribble. Gaza's aquifers became polluted by sewage and the wreckage of bombed buildings. Wells are mostly inaccessible or destroyed, aid groups and the local utility say. 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Al-Dibs was among many who told The Associated Press they knowingly drink non-potable water. The few people still possessing rooftop tanks can't muster enough water to clean them, so what flows from their taps is yellow and unsafe, said Bushra Khalidi, an official with Oxfam, an aid group working in Gaza. Before the war, the coastal enclave's more than 2 million residents got their water from a patchwork of sources. Some was piped in by Mekorot, Israel's national water utility. Some came from desalination plants. Some was pulled from high-saline wells, and some imported in bottles. Every source has been jeopardized. Palestinians are relying more heavily on groundwater, which today makes up more than half of Gaza's supply. The well water has historically been brackish, but still serviceable for cleaning, bathing, or farming, according to Palestinian water officials and aid groups. Now people have to drink it. 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Alon Berstein contributed reporting from Kerem Shalom, Israel. ___ Follow AP's war coverage at Solve the daily Crossword
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Heat and thirst drive families in Gaza to drink water that makes them sick
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — After waking early to stand in line for an hour under the August heat, Rana Odeh returns to her tent with her jug of murky water. She wipes the sweat from her brow and strategizes how much to portion out to her two small children. From its color alone, she knows full well it's likely contaminated. Thirst supersedes the fear of illness. She fills small bottles for her son and daughter and pours a sip into a teacup for herself. What's left she adds to a jerrycan for later. 'We are forced to give it to our children because we have no alternative,' Odeh, who was driven from her home in Khan Younis, said of the water. 'It causes diseases for us and our children.' Such scenes have become the grim routine in Muwasi, a sprawling displacement camp in central Gaza where hundreds of thousands endure scorching summer heat. Sweat-soaked and dust-covered, parents and children chase down water trucks that come every two or three days, filling bottles, canisters and buckets and then hauling them home, sometimes on donkey-drawn carts. Each drop is rationed for drinking, cooking, cleaning or washing. Some reuse what they can and save a couple of cloudy inches in their jerrycans for whatever tomorrow brings — or doesn't. When water fails to arrive, Odeh said, she and her son fill bottles from the sea. Over the 22 months since Israel launched its offensive, Gaza's water access has been progressively strained. Limits on fuel imports and electricity have hampered the operation of desalination plants while infrastructure bottlenecks and pipeline damage choked delivery to a dribble. Gaza's aquifers became polluted by sewage and the wreckage of bombed buildings. Wells are mostly inaccessible or destroyed, aid groups and the local utility say. Meanwhile, the water crisis has helped fuel the rampant spread of disease, on top of Gaza's rising starvation. UNRWA — the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees — said Thursday that its health centers now see an average 10,300 patients a week with infectious diseases, mostly diarrhea from contaminated water. Efforts to ease the water shortage are in motion, but for many the prospect is still overshadowed by the risk of what may unfold before new supply comes. And the thirst is only growing as a heat wave bears down, with humidity and temperatures in Gaza soaring on Friday to 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit). Searing heat and sullied water Mahmoud al-Dibs, a father displaced from Gaza City to Muwasi, dumped water over his head from a flimsy plastic bag — one of the vessels used to carry water in the camps. 'Outside the tents it is hot and inside the tents it is hot, so we are forced to drink this water wherever we go,' he said. 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The effects of drinking unclean water don't always appear right away, said Mark Zeitoun, director general of the Geneva Water Hub, a policy institute. 'Untreated sewage mixes with drinking water, and you drink that or wash your food with it, then you're drinking microbes and can get dysentery,' Zeitoun said. 'If you're forced to drink salty, brackish water, it just does your kidneys in, and then you're on dialysis for decades.' Deliveries average less than three liters (12.5 cups) per person per day — a fraction of the 15-liter (3.3-gallon) minimum humanitarian groups say is needed for drinking, cooking and basic hygiene. In February, acute watery diarrhea accounted for less than 20% of reported illnesses in Gaza. By July, it had surged to 44%, raising the risk of severe dehydration, according to UNICEF, the U.N. children's agency. System breakdown Early in the war, residents said deliveries from Israel's water company Mekorot were curtailed — a claim that Israel has denied. Airstrikes destroyed some of the transmission pipelines as well as one of Gaza's three desalination plants. Bombardment and advancing troops damaged or cut off wells – to the point that today only 137 of Gaza's 392 wells are accessible, according to UNICEF. Water quality from some wells has deteriorated, fouled by sewage, the rubble of shattered buildings and the residue of spent munitions. Fuel shortages have strained the system, slowing pumps at wells and the trucks that carry water. The remaining two desalination plants have operated far below capacity or ground to a halt at times, aid groups and officials say. In recent weeks, Israel has taken some steps to reverse the damage. It delivers water via two of Mekorot's three pipelines into Gaza and reconnected one of the desalination plants to Israel's electricity grid, Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel told The Associated Press. Still, the plants put out far less than before the war, Monther Shoblaq, head of Gaza's Coastal Municipalities Water Utility, told AP. That has forced him to make impossible choices. The utility prioritizes getting water to hospitals and to people. But that means sometimes withholding water needed for sewage treatment, which can trigger neighborhood backups and heighten health risks. Water hasn't sparked the same global outrage as limits on food entering Gaza. But Shoblaq warned of a direct line between the crisis and potential loss of life. 'It's obvious that you can survive for some days without food, but not without water,' he said. Supply's future Water access is steadying after Israel's steps. Aid workers have grown hopeful that the situation won't get worse and could improve. Southern Gaza could get more relief from a United Arab Emirates-funded desalination plant just across the border in Egypt. COGAT, the Israeli military body in charge of humanitarian aid to Gaza, said it has allowed equipment into the enclave to build a pipeline from the plant and deliveries could start in a few weeks. The plant wouldn't depend on Israel for power, but since Israel holds the crossings, it will control the entry of water into Gaza for the foreseeable future. But aid groups warn that access to water and other aid could be disrupted again by Israel's plans to launch a new offensive on some of the last areas outside its military control. Those areas include Gaza City and Muwasi, where much of Gaza's population is now located. In Muwasi's tent camps, people line up for the sporadic arrivals of water trucks. Hosni Shaheen, whose family was also displaced from Khan Younis, already sees the water he drinks as a last resort. 'It causes stomach cramps for adults and children, without exception,' he said. 'You don't feel safe when your children drink it.' ___ Metz reported from Jerusalem. Alon Berstein contributed reporting from Kerem Shalom, Israel. ___ Follow AP's war coverage at
