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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.
Prosecutor
Douglas
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 lawyer Andrew
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.
***
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