To his supporters, former media mogul Jimmy Lai is a fighter for democracy. To his opponents, he's a traitor to his motherland. Now, he could face life in prison after being convicted of conspiracies to commit sedition and collusion with foreign forces awaits a verdict in a landmark trial that began in 2023. Lai, 78, is an outspoken critic of China's ruling Communist Party who was arrested in 2020 under a national security law following massive anti-government protests that rocked Hong Kong the year before. His arrest and the closure of his Apple Daily newspaper, a tabloid-style publication that backed the democracy movement, dealt a blow to free speech in a city that was once a bastion of press freedom in Asia. A conviction could keep the British citizen in jail for the rest of his life. Born in mainland China, Lai was just 12 when he arrived in Hong Kong on a fishing boat as a stowaway, hoping for a better life in the then-British colony. He began working as a child labourer in