UNITED NATIONS, May 17 – Four months after the arrest for UN bribery of Patrick Ho, the head of China Energy Fund Committee full funded by CEFC China Energy, his ultimate boss at CEFC Ye Jianming was brought in for questioning in China. On May 17, Ho was denied bail in a proceeding in which the UN was described as corrupted, and Ho's emails offering bribes to the foundation of UN President of the General Assembly Sam Kutesa were made part of the judge's order. Still, there was no one from the UN Secretariat on hand, and no other UN correspondent other than Inner City Press in the courtroom. Post-hearing Periscope video here. China Energy Fund Committee, the bribery vehicle, is still in special consultative status with UN ECOSOC. Oft-traveling Secretary General Antonio Guterres has not even ordered an audit (though he keeps restrictions on Inner City Press which covered the Ng Lap Seng and now Patrick Ho UN bribery scandals. The UN is a corrupted institution. In court on May 17, Ho's lawyer Andrew Levander argued that now China is cutting "the energy company" CEFC China Energy no slack. ProsecutorDouglas Zolkind on the other hand emphasized that the energy company has now essentially been taken over the Chinese government, which he also said controls Hong Kong's decisions to extradite or not. Judge Katherine Forrest noted that the energy company is paying Ho's legal fees and said its motives could not be known. She read into the record not only the Kutesa emails in Paragraph 40 of the complaint but also those about Chad's president Deby in Paragraphs 24 and 26. It was said the case "involves many people at the UN." We'll have more on this. On May 15 the prosecution detailed how the bribes were paid, as part of responding to Ho's motion to dismissed. The funds to Kutesa when from HSBC in Hong Kong to Deutsche Bank in New York to Stanbic in Uganda. The funded to Gadio, in two tranches, when from HSBC in Hong Kong to HSBC in New York to Mashreq Bank in New York to Mashreq Bank in Dubai. On May 17 Ho should hear a ruling on his re-request for bail. At the UN, which has yet to even order an audit while Ho's China Energy Fund Committee is still in special consultative status with UN ECOSOC, Inner City Press asked if the UN hopes to get awarded attorneys fees like it did, to the tune of $302,000, in the case of Ng Lap Seng, with the same prosecutors. The UN declined to comment - it remains UNreformed. Watch this site. On May 2, Patrick Ho and five lawyers argued for more than an hour to try to get bail granted - it was not. Judge Katherine Forrest noted that even if Ho's motions to dismiss some counts, and to suppress evidence collected with his iPad password, are in fact granted, the case will still proceed. She asked his lawyers to research whether the equity in his mother's home in Hong Kong could be transferred to a bank in the United States. Ho's lawyerAndrew Levander quoted him that this is a case not only against Ho, but also against CEFC and China it its "One Belt, One Road." The prosecution's Douglas Zolkind recounted how Ho inside the UN worked with former Senegal foreign minister Gadio to bribe Chadian president Gadio, who "laughingly" referred to Brazilian bribes for another oil concession. Ho's lawyers analogized him to Jeff Bezos of Amazon and to Donald J. Trump. He will be back in court in a forthnight on May 17 at 3 pm - and so will we. Post hearing Periscope video here.
Management and day to day operations of CEFC have reportedly been taken over by the Shanghai city government's investment arm, Shanghai Guosheng Group Company. At the UN, Inner City Press asked if this meant that its fundee could not longer be in special consultative status to UN ECOSOC; this has not been answered. Inner City Press made this connection: the president of ECOSOC is Marie Chatardová, Permanent Representative of the Czech Republic to the UN. Her president, in Prague Castle, is Miloš Zeman -- who, like Uganda's Foreign Minister Sam Kutesa when he was UN President of the General Assembly, made Ye Jianming an official adviser.(Inner City Press' CEFC investigative covered has been picked up in the Czech media, for example here.) Amazingly, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has yet to even order an audit, which his predecessor Ban Ki-moon did in the case resulting in a 48 month sentence for Ng Lap Seng (while also evicted Inner City Press for pursuing the story; Guterres and his Global Communicator Alison Smale continue the restrictions). Watch this site.
