Former media tycoon Jimmy Lai has been jailed for 20 years for three national security-related charges - the toughest sentence so far on National Security Law conviction.

The sentence was handed down by a bench of three High Court judges Esther Toh, Susana D’Alamada Remedios and Alex Lee on Monday.

The Apple Daily founder, 78, was convicted in December last year by the three-judge bench of two counts of conspiracy to collude with foreign forces and a third charge of conspiracy to print seditious material.

Lai, who has been detained since late 2020, has denied all three charges against him.

Three companies – namely Apple Daily Limited, Apple Daily Printing Limited, and AD Internet Limited – were each fined HK$3,004,500 for conspiring to collude with foreign forces and to publish seditious material.

Eight other defendants, who have pleaded guilty in the high-profile case, were given jail terms of between six years and three months and 10 years.

Six of them are former senior Apple Daily staffers: publisher Cheung Kim-hung, associate publisher Chan Pui-man, editor-in-chief Ryan Law, executive editor-in-chief Lam Man-chung, and editorial writers Fung Wai-kong and Yeung Ching-kee.

The remaining two are paralegal Wayland Chan and former activist Andy Li.