Former Hong Kong home affairs chief Patrick Ho may be calling notorious US jail home for next 9 months

After again being denied bail, Ho may be spending time in New York’s Metropolitan Correctional Center – a place described as worse than Guantanamo Bay

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Patrick Ho has been in custody since November. Photo: Franke Tsang

Published: 11:30pm, 6 Feb 2018Updated: 12:04am, 7 Feb 2018

Hong Kong’s former home affairs secretary Patrick Ho Chi-ping may spend the next nine months in a place where notorious drug lords, international arms dealers, terrorists, mafiosi and billion-dollar fraudsters once called home.

A US district court judge’s decision to deny Ho bail for a second time early Tuesday means he will be spending more time at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, New York, a facility that one former inmate described as worse than Guantanamo Bay. Judge Katherine Forrest ruled that Ho, who is facing bribery and money laundering charges, presented a flight risk.

In this courtroom sketch, Patrick Ho attends his latest bail hearing in New York. Illustration: AP

Forrest’s decision followed an objection by the prosecution team to the former home affairs secretary’s second bail application. Last month, the defence team asked that Ho be released on a US$10 million bond, 10 times the original application.

Ex-Hong Kong minister Patrick Ho indicted in US over alleged US$2.9 million in bribes to African officials

The judge cited in her decision the possibility that Ho could find “safe harbour” in jurisdictions in which he had worked for a Hong Kong-based NGO, including the city, mainland China and Russia. Ho’s NGO was funded by a Chinese oil and gas conglomerate identified in the indictment against him as gaining business advantages in Africa as a result of payments he orchestrated.