Former Hong Kong minister Patrick Ho Chi-ping convicted in US court on 7 of 8 counts in bribery and money-laundering case
- The former Hong Kong minister was found guilty of offering millions of dollars in bribes to African officials
- He now faces jail time in the United States after the conviction by a federal court in New York
Former Hong Kong minister Patrick Ho Chi-ping has been found guilty by a federal jury in New York of offering millions of dollars in bribes to African officials, and now faces jail time in the United States.
On Wednesday afternoon, local time, Ho was convicted by the New York Southern District Court jury on seven of eight counts of bribery and money laundering over oil rights for Chinese conglomerate CEFC China Energy, in Chad and Uganda.
“Expected. It’s like that,” Ho told Hong Kong reporters in Cantonese before leaving the courtroom to return to the Metropolitan Correctional Centre, where he has been held for more than a year. He also thanked his friends in Hong Kong without giving names, and shook hands with every member of his legal team.
Ho was unanimously acquitted of one money-laundering charge in Chad, as the jury had reservations about whether the money offered in this case came under US jurisdiction.
He will be sentenced on March 14. The maximum penalty for each bribery count is five years’ imprisonment and 20 years for money laundering, though he could be sentenced to concurrent terms.
Ho, 69, was Hong Kong’s home affairs minister from 2002 to 2007. He later became the deputy secretary general of a think tank that was financed by CEFC. Since then, he has been an advocate for the “Belt and Road Initiative”, China’s global trade strategy.
In November 2017, he was arrested at John F Kennedy International Airport in New York and charged with five counts of violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and three counts of money laundering involving US$2.9 million in bribes given to state leaders and officials of Chad and Uganda.
