Hong Kong media tycoon and pro-democracy advocate Jimmy Lai, 76, testified in court for the first time on Wednesday in his landmark national security trial, accused of endangering China's national security by colluding with foreign forces.

Jimmy Lai, the pugnacious Hong Kong media tycoon whose now shuttered tabloid Apple Daily was a regular thorn in Beijing’s side, took the stand Wednesday in his own defense for the first time in a high stakes national security trial that could send him to prison for life.

As pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai faces a potential life sentence in the high-stakes national security case in Hong Kong, his son Sebastien Lai has denounced the proceedings as a politically motivated “show trial” driven by a China-led crackdown on dissent.