The Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal has decided on New Year’s Eve to hear the final appeal of Apple Daily founder Jimmy Lai’s bail terms after the Department of Justice filed an urgent submission to send the 73-year-old back into custody.

The hearing had been scheduled for next Tuesday but was later postponed to 10 a.m. Thursday. The court will handle the custody order and the appeal at the same time.

Lai was released on Wednesday under some of the most stringent bail terms given by the court since the 1997 handover — harsher than those for disgraced former chief secretary Rafael Hui and property mogul Thomas Kwok after they were arrested in 2012 over a corruption scandal involving several million.

Lai’s bail was set at HK$10 million (US$1.3 million). His travel documents have been seized and he was ordered to remain under house arrest, except when reporting to the police three times a week.

The pro-democracy media tycoon has also been banned from using social media, meeting with foreign officials and giving interviews or publishing any articles online or in print.

Prosecutors on Wednesday appealed to the city’s highest court in an attempt to bring Lai back into custody to await his mid-April hearings over charges of collusion with foreign forces and fraud.

On Friday, Lai reported to the police for the first time since being released from custody. He left his mansion in the residential district of Ho Man Tin at about 3 p.m. and drove to the Kowloon City Police Station. He spent eight minutes at the station and left with a box of documents, returning to his residence at around 3:30 p.m.

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