TIFFANY MAY AND DAVID PIERSON

New York Times

HONG KONG — The landmark trial of Jimmy Lai, a Hong Kong media mogul and prominent democracy campaigner, wrapped up Thursday. But whether or not he is freed may depend more on a political decision than a legal one.

The question hanging over the case is not so much whether the city's courts will convict him − in national security cases, they almost always do. It is whether China, under pressure from foreign governments, will decide there is more to gain from keeping the outspoken publisher locked up or from letting him go.

Lai, 77, who appeared in court last week looking thinner and tired after years behind bars, has become a symbol of how free speech has been crushed in Hong Kong since Beijing imposed a national security law on the city five

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