Vietnamese revolutionary Ho Chi Minh arrived in Hong Kong in 1929 in a bid to organize communist revolutionaries across Asia. During his stay, a French colonial court sentenced Ho to death in absentia. The Royal Hong Kong Police detained Ho at the request of the French government and held him in prison for six months as English lawyers debated the case for his extradition. The British government could not convict Ho under regional laws, but they had little desire to release such a provocative figure back into the public, so they reached a compromise: deport Ho, but to a destination of his choosing. Ho, now wary of his captors, fled to mainland China disguised as a local merchant.