Bribery convict Patrick Ho returns to HK

Bribery convict Patrick Ho Chi-ping, the disgraced former secretary for home affairs from 2002 to 2007, has arrived in Hong Kong in the morning today, reports say.

The 70-year-old Ho was convicted of bribery in the United States last year and was freed from a New York jail on Monday.

He served 36 months in jail and was also fined US$400,000. At the time, he was a senior figure of Shanghai-based oil conglomerate CEFC China Energy, demed to be a think tank.

Ho was convicted on seven counts of violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and money laundering in December 2018. He had pleaded not guilty. In sentencing, Judge Loretta A Preska had called corruption "an insidious plague," CNN reported at the time. She noted that it is "found in all countries -- big and small, rich and poor -- but it is in the developing world that its effects are most destructive."

Ho was detained in  New York in November 2017. 

He is expected to be under mandatory 14-day quarantine.