Hong Kong billionaire Jimmy Lai tested China's limits. It cost him his freedom

Lai, who is facing life in prison, always said he owed Hong Kong, a city that had given him "everything".

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They had all been part of the turbulent protests that had rocked Hong Kong in 2019, when hundreds of thousands took to the streets demanding democracy and more freedom in the Chinese territory.

They would also often meet for dinner, sometimes lavish meals, gossiping and bantering over dim sum, pizza or claypot rice.

In prison, he "loved eating rice with pickled ginger," Chan said. "No-one could have imagined Jimmy Lai would eat something like that!"

But neither had they imagined a reunion at a maximum security prison, the protests crushed, friends and fellow activists jailed, Hong Kong just as boisterous and yet, changed. And gone was the owner of the irreverent nickname "Fatty Lai": he had lost considerable weight.