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The son of British media mogul Jimmy Lai has urged the UK foreign secretary to help save his unwell father amid fears that he could die in prison.
Sebastien Lai said David Lammy must challenge Beijing on the imprisonment of his 76-year-old father and is “disappointed” to have not heard from the foreign secretary since Labour took power.
Mr Lammy is set to visit China next week to seek “less confrontational” ties with Beijing in a major reset of Britain’s relations with the country, according to reports.
“My father will die in jail if David Lammy does not raise his case. This is an issue about saving his life,” Sebastien told The Independent.
Mr Lai was seen shivering in court showing “significant loss of weight and increasing frailty” in September, according to his international legal team.
He has been locked up since 2020 and faces a life sentence under Beijing’s National Security Law, while also serving time for charges overseen by British judges.
Mr Lai’s lawyers have alleged that he had been denied access to specialised medical care for his long-standing health concern of diabetes.
The legal team said a “lack of specialised medical care increases the risk of long-term complications linked to his diabetes due to the failure to properly manage his condition”.
The foreign secretary reportedly raised Mr Lai’s case with Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in July – although the details are unclear.
But Sebastien has been left “dissappointed” and has so far not heard from Mr Lammy or been offered a meeting about his father’s case.
British officials have said they want to recalibrate many of the previous Conservative Party-led government’s positions on China, which it described as an “epoch-defining challenge”.
British finance minister Rachel Reeves is also considering travelling to China in the near future, said two sources.
Her visit will aim to revive trade and investment talks that are supposed to take place annually. The last round of the UK-China Economic and Financial Dialogue, as it is called, was held in 2019.
Mr Lai’s international lawyer Caoilfhionn Gallagher said: “If there is an intention to reset relations with China, Mr Lammy needs to use that as leverage to ensure that Jimmy Lai is released.
“It has to be front and centre and there has to be a real strategy. Sebastien and I are dissapointed we have not met David Lammy since he was appointed as foreign secretary.
“If this is a top case for the UK government, why has the foreign secretary not met with Sebastien directly, and why has the prime minister not met with him directly?”
Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs Alicia Kearns told The Independent: “As Mr Lammy sets off to China he has promised to prioritise human rights – that means securing Jimmy Lai’s freedom.
“Labour wants to improve relations with China, but this cannot come at the cost of our values, our security and – most importantly- the freedom of our people.”
A Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office spokesperson told The Independent: “British national Jimmy Lai’s case is a priority for the UK Government.
“We continue to call on the Hong Kong authorities to end their politically motivated prosecution and immediately release Jimmy Lai.
“The foreign secretary raised his case in his first meeting with China’s foreign minister in July and Catherine West met with Sebastien Lai and Jimmy Lai’s international legal team on Tuesday 8 October in her capacity as minister for the Indo-Pacific.”
