The now-detained activist earlier told West Kowloon Court two of Lai’s private companies made advance payments for the group to run two overseas advertising campaigns in 2019, with the firms eventually reimbursed with money gathered from crowdfunding.

He said on Wednesday Lai’s personal assistant Mark Simon, a former United States intelligence agent, also handled millions in crowdfunding donations but did not sponsor the group in any of its lobbying efforts.

Li said he had not, but added Simon had once provided him HK$500,000 (US$63,850) in emergency funds for organising an election observation mission in November that year, a sum Simon was eventually repaid.

“For the sake of completeness, you did not receive any money from Mr Lai,” Corlett said.

“Never did I,” Li replied.

The activist also agreed with the defence’s depiction of SWHK as a “grass-roots crowdfunded advocacy group.”

He explained it was a loose and decentralised coalition of activists that supported Hong Kong’s freedom and democracy.

Corlett drew the court’s attention to an email Li drafted in June 2019 to request a bridging loan from people he believed were affiliated with “T”, paralegal Wayland Chan Tsz-wah, said in court to be the middleman between the activist and Lai.

Li in the email called himself “the de facto administrator/coordinator” of SWHK’s crowdfunding campaign and said the group was in need of HK$5 million to settle publication fees owed to a variety of newspapers as it could not immediately put its crowdfunding donations to use.

Li told the court he turned to “T” for help after he had exhausted his own financial reserve of HK$3 million. He added he believed at the time everything he did was legal.

The witness agreed with the counsel’s claim Simon did not give any instruction or advice on calling for US sanctions or other hostile acts, including cessation of a mutual legal assistance protocol, but added he had suggested that Li explain what “motivates” frontline protesters.

The trial continues on Thursday.