2.31
SECRET
INWARD TELEGRAM
TO THE COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (The Secretary of State)
TO HONG KONG (Sir D. Trench)
Cypher
D• R. 13
13 June, 1967.
t
tt
07552
ARCH
UN
238
IMMEDIATE
SECRET No. 831.
230
LENT FOR MEGISTRATION
My telegrams Nos. 814 and 818.
The man who died in police custody on Friday 9 June was aged 42 and married. Detained for questioning after the disturbances at the Government workshops in Kowloon on 8 June he was placed in a police station cell with three other men who remained with him thereafter at 2022 hours on 8 June after preliminary investigation. At 0820 on 9 June he said he had
no complaints nor were there signs of injury. At 1300 he was found seated on the floor and slumped against a wall. His companions did not realise he was ill, but he was found to be dead. Post mortem established cause of death to be traumatic haemothorax. Four ribs were fractured and had punctured the lungs. The breast bone was also broken. These injuries were judged to have been received 24 hours before death. The circumstances of arrest were fairly violent, much tear gas was used and there was much struggling to escape as well as to resist arrest. The police were satisfied that he was one of the ringleaders in the disorders and would have charged him. The circumstances in which these injuries were inflicted are still under investigation by police, and a report will be prepared for coroner. No date has been arranged for funeral yet, but it is possible it will be used as an occasion for demonstrations.
2. The man found dead in a coal bunker at the gas works at 0600 hours on Sunday 11 June was aged 52, married, and apparently not a union member. He was half buried in coal, the level of which was thirty feet below ground. The post mortem established cause of death as asphyxia due to suffocation by coal and dated it as two or three days before. There were no signs of injury caused by violence. It is assumed that he was hiding from rioters or the police and coal-falls from a bunker higher up buried him, but it has not been possible to establish when he was last seen.
3. So far, the All Circles Committee are reported to have paid one thousand dollars to the wife of the first man. The Gas Company are being encouraged to make a similar and speedy gift to the next of kin of the second.
/Distribution
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