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Hong Kong’s High Court has sentenced media tycoon Jimmy Lai to 20 years in prison, in the country’s most high-profile security case in Beijing’s crackdown on the territory.

Suffera 78-year-old billionaire media entrepreneur, a supporter of the pro-democracy movement that shook Hong Kong in 2019, and has long been a staunch critic of China.

His trial was closely watched around the world as a barometer of press and political freedom Hong Kong after authorities in the semi-autonomous territory and in Beijing cracked down in response to the unrest.

In December, Lai was convicted on two counts of conspiracy with a foreign power and one count of conspiracy to publish seditious materials through his media group, the now-defunct pro-democracy tabloid Apple Daily. The foreign conspiracy charges were brought under the national security law that Beijing imposed on Hong Kong in 2020.

The court said on Monday that it had “no doubt whatsoever” that the conspiracy charges “fall into the category of offenses of a ‘serious nature'”. It added that the charge of sedition also fell into the “most serious category of its type”.

Lai faces the possibility of life in prison under the national security law.

The sentence will stop hoping that US President Donald Trump, who has promised “100 percent” to release Lai in the run-up to the 2024 presidential election, or UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who, according to Downing Street officials, raised his case on a trip to Beijing last month, able to secure an early release. Lai is a British citizen.

UK foreign secretary Yvette Cooper said in a statement that 20 years was “like a life sentence” for Lai. He called on the authorities to “end his terrible ordeal and release him for humanitarian reasons”.

Lai may appeal against the sentence, although his legal team has not said whether he will do so. He is diabetic and suffers from heart palpitations. His family and international legal team say he risks dying in prison, given his health condition.

In a statement, Sebastien Laithe son of Jimmy Lai, said: “Sentencing my father to this severe prison sentence will harm our family and threaten my father’s life. It means the complete destruction of the Hong Kong legal system and the end of justice.”

A heavy police presence surrounds the West Kowloon Law Courts Building, where several national security-related hearings are held. Court visitors could be heard crying during the proceedings.

Hong Kong chief executive John Lee said in a Chinese-language statement on Facebook that “the heavy sentence … reflects the rule of law and justice”.

Chinese authorities have described Lai as a key mover behind the 2019 unrest, which they framed as an attempted “color revolution” instigated by foreign forces through figures like Lai.

Hong Kong prosecutors have pointed to Lai’s meetings between US officials, which they say show his efforts to get US sanctions on Chinese and Hong Kong officials to topple the Chinese Communist Party.

Hong Kong operates a separate legal infrastructure from mainland China under the “one country, two systems” arrangement that governed its handover from British administration in 1997.

The Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office in Beijing said the sentence “fully reflects the bitter hatred of Hong Kong society towards the villains who are anti-Chinese and trouble Hong Kong”.

John Moolenaar, the Republican chair of the China committee in the US House of Representatives, said the sentence was “the latest stain on the Chinese Communist Party’s human rights record and a mockery of its promise to support one country, two systems”. The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

Lai was first arrested in 2020 and has already spent five years in detention. He was previously sentenced to consecutive prison terms for his alleged involvement in an illegal vigil in 2020 to mark the anniversary of the bloody crackdown on Tiananmen Square protests and “unauthorized” anti-government protests, as well as for alleged fraud at his media group Next Media.

His latest trial lasted 156 days. Lai’s co-defendants, including two activists and six former Apple Daily employees, received sentences ranging from six years and three months to 10 years.

Additional reporting by Demetri Sevastopulo in Washington