In a statement released on Sunday, a spokesperson said the Hong Kong government "strongly condemns and opposes the misleading and false remark which the US State Department made aiming to intervene in Hong Kong's course of justice."

Representatives of the Office of the Commissioner of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs also condemn US for interfering in the internal affairs of the HKSAR.

Lai, the founder of the defunct Apple Daily, was sentenced to five years and nine months with a fine of HK$2 million for violating a lease contract for his media outlet headquarters yesterday.

Ned Price, the spokesman of the US Statement Department, earlier said the United States condemned "the grossly unjust outcome of Jimmy Lai's latest trial sentencing".

"By any objective measure, this result is neither fair nor just," he added, "We once again call on People's Republic of China authorities to respect freedom of expression, including for the press, in Hong Kong."

District Court Judge Stanley Chan Kwong-chi said in the court on Saturday that Lai has abused the land issued by the government by taking advantage of his identity to be a media tycoon as a protective umbrella".