Disgraced Hong Kong leader Donald Tsang’s brief return to public life ends with failed court appeal

From when he was charged three years ago to the day he became the first Hong Kong leader to serve a jail sentence last year, Donald Tsang Yam-kuen had largely kept a low profile.

The only time the ex-chief executive publicly addressed his supporters over his unprecedented fall from grace was when he was granted bail last April pending an appeal against his misconduct conviction.

Thanking his supporters, Tsang, 73, whose hair had gone noticeably greyer after he spent two months in solitary confinement, said outside court: “During this time, of course I experienced many heartaches that cannot be described in words.”

Since his release, however, the retired leader appeared to be on a different course – a more proactive one – as though he were less bothered by the toll the years-long prosecution had taken on him, his reputation and his health than before.

Just months after he was set free, Tsang, who had served as chief executive from 2005 to 2012, re-emerged on the fringes of the city’s political scene, weighing in on Hong Kong-mainland relations in television interviews and in articles written for the Post. He also attended the funeral of Lau Wong-fat, 80, an influential political figure representing the city’s rural communities.

This year, Tsang even turned up alongside his predecessors Tung Chee-wah and Leung Chun-ying, and his successor, Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor, at the annual flag-raising ceremony on July 1 to celebrate the city’s 1997 return to Chinese rule, a prominent event that Tsang, having just been convicted, missed last year.

This apparent return to normalcy came to an end on Friday, however, when the Court of Appeal rejected Tsang’s bid to overturn his conviction, meaning he would have to go back behind bars.