SECRET
Cypher/Cat A
HONG KONG TO COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (D.T.D.)
Telno 1863
SECRET
12 December, 1967
208 TOP COPY
Addressed to Commonwealth Office telegram No.1863 of 12 December, Repeated for information to Peking.
190) Your telegram No.2512: Deportation of Prisoners.
I would at present be reluctant to try this manoeuvre without some fairly firm indication that the deportees would be accepted at the border because once it became clear that we were unable to effect deportation, then the threat of deportation (which still has some deterrent value) would cease to have any credibility.
20
Arrangements can be made legally to effect release if deportees are accepted back or take them into custody again if they are not: the procedures will vary with different categories of convicted prisoner or detainee. It is not however an entirely simple matter of letting them go or putting them under restraint again: there are legal processes to be gone through which cannot be entirely ignored and could be quite complex.
203
3。 Peking telegram to Foreign Office No.326 has been received since the above was drafted. I agree we should wait to see how we get on over Wen Wei Pao before taking this any further; but in the meanwhile we will examine the possibilities of proceeding as proposed in more detail.
Foreign Office please pass routine to Peking as my telegram
No.663.
Sir D.Trench.
[Repetition to Peking referred for Departmental decision].
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RECRIVED 'IN ARCHIVES No.63 13 DEC1967
HWAK