Gen. Museveni, flanked by Patrick Ho and Sam Kutesa. Photo: Archives.
Patrick Ho, the Chinese national who was convicted in U.S. federal court of bribing the Ugandan military dictator Gen. Yoweri Museveni and the country’s foreign minister $1 million reportedly paid a $1 million retainer to Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden.
The report of the retainer to Hunter Biden is contained in a Washington Post story.
Ho was sentenced to three years imprisonment after his December 2018 conviction.
The $1 million bribe Ho paid to the Ugandans was evenly split between Gen. Museveni and his then foreign minister, Sam Kutesa, according to evidence presented at trial. The money was a downpayment, with promises of more future payments and a business “partnership” between a Chinese company, CEFC China Energy, and the families of Gen. Museveni and Kutesa.
During the trial in December 2018, in U.S. federal court in New York, prosecutors displayed photos of both Gen. Museveni—marked as exhibit #1510—and Kutesa, designated as exhibit #1504, in the courtroom to jurors.
The Ugandan dictator’s photo was displayed in court during Ho’s trial. Photo: U.S. Department of Justice.
The payments and the promise of joint-business partnership was in return for concessions in Uganda’s oil industry and other business investments on behalf of CEFC China Energy. Kutesa worked details of the bribery scheme while he was in New York for a one-year period in 2014, serving as President of the United Nations General Assembly.
The U.S. gained jurisdiction over the case and the FBI arrested Ho at JFK airport in 2017 because he used a New York-branch of HSBC to wire Kutesa’s $500,000 cut on May 6, 2016 to a Stanbic Bank Uganda Ltd. account in Uganda. The FBI said Kutesa had created a fictitious foundation initially called The Uganda Foundation and then later the Food Security and Sustainable Energy Foundation that even listed an office. But when an FBI agent went to Uganda he found that no such foundation existed at the location shown on its letterhead or anywhere else in the country.
After Uganda’s 2016 stolen presidential election, Gen. Museveni invited Ho for his swearing ceremony in May 2016. Ho traveled with other CEFC China executives to Uganda to negotiate the business deals paid for with the $1 million bribe. According to U.S. prosecutors, Ho carried with him $500,000 in cash for Museveni–wrapped as a “gift”–on the Gulf Stream jet he used for traveling to Uganda. Before departing for Uganda, Ho sent a note on May 10, 2016 to Kutesa stating, “We shall require some special assistance with your customs officials.” To clear Uganda customs, Edith Kutesa, the then foreign minister’s wife, met the Chinese delegation at the airport, jurors were told during Ho’s U.S. trial.
Ugandan foreign minister Kutesa’s photo was displayed in court during Ho’s trial. Photo: U.S. Department of Justice.
The Ugandan dictator Museveni last year signed a major deal for an oil pipeline with TOTAL Energy’s ceo Patrick Pouyanne.
Separately, a Black Star News investigative report showed that Kutesa stole almost $30 million from the U.N. when he was unlawfully awarded a contract for his company, Entebbe Handling Services (Enhas), which has monopoly to handle baggage and cargo at Entebbe International Airport.
Kutesa, who at the time he won the contract was Uganda’s foreign minister, hadn’t disclosed that he was the owner of Enhas when he was awarded the deal. The comparison would be Secretary of State Antony Blinken being awarded a U.N. multi-million dollar contract for his private company while serving in the Biden administration.
When Black Star News contacted the U.N. about the unlawful payments of millions of dollars to Kutesa’s company—U.S. taxpayers are the largest contributors to the U.N.—the United Nations disabled the links on its website showing the invoices that detailed the millions of dollars paid to Enhas.
According to today’s Washington Post report, over a 14-month period, beginning from August 2017, CEFC China Energy “and its executives paid $4.8 million to entities controlled by Hunter Biden and his uncle, according to government records, court documents and newly disclosed bank statements, as well as emails contained on a copy of a laptop hard drive that purportedly once belonged to Hunter Biden.”
The Post report adds: “The potential energy projects Hunter Biden discussed with CEFC never came to fruition. Nonetheless, accounts linked to Hunter Biden received $3.8 million in payments from CEFC through consulting contracts, according to bank records and joint agreements reviewed by The Post. Biden received an additional $1 million retainer, issued as part of an agreement to represent Patrick Ho, a CEFC official who would later be charged in the United States in connection with a multimillion-dollar scheme to bribe leaders from Chad and Uganda. That retainer agreement, in a newly uncovered document, contains the signatures of both Hunter Biden and Ho, who was later convicted and sentenced to three years in prison.”
After serving his time, Ho was deported from the U.S.
The U.S. supports the corrupt Ugandan dictatorship with about $1 billion in annual financial and military assistance.
Both Gen. Museveni and Kutesa, who is no longer Uganda’s foreign minister, have not stepped on U.S. soil since Ho’s arrest in 2017, both missing even the General Assembly meetings of the United Nations, before the Covid pandemic. Kutesa’s daughter is married to Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba, Gen. Museveni’s son and presumptive heir-designate. Kakwenza Rukirabashaija, leading Ugandan author and Black Star News columnist who has since fled the country accused Gen. Kainerugaba of supervising his recent torture ordeal.
At one point a Ugandan official contacted this reporter to find out if it was “safe” for Kutesa to travel to the U.S.
