The Lie group is a second-countable space. For every point of its discrete subgroup, choose the first basic neighbourhood isolating that point; different elements require different such neighbourhoods. This injects into a countable set, proving countability.
A discrete subgroup is closed and meets compact sets in finitely many points. Indeed, distinct subgroup elements accumulating anywhere would give quotients converging to identity, contradicting an identity neighbourhood containing no other subgroup element. To apply this, use the positive Hermitian determinant-one model of hyperbolic space. At the base point , the image under a determinant-one representative is and
This distance formula follows by unitary diagonalization: eigenvalues are and the axial hyperbolic displacement is . Thus bounded displacement bounds all matrix entries. The determinant-one condition is closed, so the resulting set is compact; the quotient by is compact too. Conjugation gives the same conclusion at any base point. These are the bounded displacement sets of hyperbolic isometries are compact facts.
Hence, for each , only finitely many satisfy . Any enumeration of an infinite group without repetitions therefore has . A finite discrete group is a harmless exception to the wording: it has no infinite enumeration of distinct elements, and proper discontinuity is immediate.
For a compact set , put . If , choose . The triangle inequality gives . Only finitely many such exist, proving properly discontinuous group action. Conversely, if the subgroup is not discrete, there are distinct . A closed ball about then meets its images under infinitely many , violating this compact-set definition. Thus discreteness is equivalent to proper discontinuity. Here proper discontinuity allows finite point stabilizers; a stronger convention requiring freeness would exclude discrete elliptic subgroups and is not the equivalence intended.