Media entrepreneur Jimmy Lai has been moved to a maximum security prison that has housed Hong Kong’s most dangerous gangster bosses, months before his scheduled court hearing on fraud and national security charges.

Chained and handcuffed on Friday, the 73-year-old founder of Apple Daily was transported from the Lai Chi Kok detention center to Stanley Prison, which is used for convicts serving lengthy sentences, including life imprisonment, for the most serious crimes.

Earlier in the day, two of Lai’s colleagues from Apple Daily arrived at Lai Chi Kok detention center to visit Lai, but were turned away by Correctional Services Department officers.

Lai was remanded in custody on Nov. 3 over a fraud charge, and his next hearing is set for April 16, 2021. Last week, while Lai was applying for bail, police charged him with the more serious offence of colluding with foreign countries – a new offence created under the national security law imposed by Beijing in June.

It is rare in Hong Kong for suspects to be held in a high-security prison while awaiting trial. They are usually held in the Lai Chi Kok detention center.

Sources close to the Correctional Services Department said high-security prisons are sometimes used if the Lai Chi Kok detention center is too crowded, or in cases where closer monitoring is necessary.

The move is also used by prison officials to discourage visits to a particular detainee, since Stanley prison is more remote, they said.

The number of inmates moved to Stanley from Lai Chi Kok annually ranged from 201 to 335 in the three years from 2016 to 2018, according to figures from the Correctional Services Department tabled in the Legislative Council.

Opened in 1937, Stanley Prison is Hong Kong’s largest maximum security facility, housing up to 1,500 inmates. Its most notorious prisoners have included “King of Robbers” Yip Kai-foon and crime boss Kwai Ping-hung.

Lai’s family and friends are expected to be able to visit him in Stanley on a daily basis since he has not been convicted, Apple Daily has learned. He can also order meals from a list of designated restaurants.

On Thursday, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom recognized Lai as a religious prisoner of conscience. It called for Lai’s release along with other pro-democracy activists including Joshua Wong and Agnes Chow.

The commission said Lai has attracted the anger of the Chinese and Hong Kong governments for his political activism and outspoken criticism of Beijing’s human rights abuses.

Despite his U.K. citizenship, Lai chose to remain in Hong Kong in order to advocate against the encroachment of the Chinese communist government on the city’s freedoms, it added.

“The world must speak with one loud and united voice against these atrocities,” said commission member Johnnie Moore. “I raise my voice for Jimmy Lai and all those like him.”

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