HONG STANDARD
KONG
APRIL 171 173
17th
HKKI4/16
More hangings on the way: lawyor
THE decision to hang 28-year-old murderer Tsoi Kwok-cheong is likely to be the start of a return to regular hangings.
That is the view of leading Hongkong lawyer Mr Henry Litton, QC, a former president of the Hongkong Bar Association.
Mr Litton who himself questions the value of capital said the punishment Governor's dramatic decision to refuse Tsol a reprieve showed the Government's intention to combat crime with "strong repressive measures”,
Tsoi, who killed a 20-year-old man during a $100 robbery, will be the flat man to die by hanging in Hongkong for seven years.
But Mr Litton did not think' he would be the last. With the anti-crime campaign due to start in June, he expected the Governor to make further decisions not to grant reprieves.
He said in exercising his prerogative, the Governor was not confined to the consideration of the gravity of the offence.
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"One of the things the Governor is constrained consider is the general public interest and in particular how far capital punishment might act as a deterrent," Mr Litton sald during
television interview.
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"This might act 23 dramatic announcement of the Government's firm intention to combat crime and violence with strong repressive
measures.
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But Mr Litton added that if measure of punishment "as
brutal and violent as hanging": was not suitable for Britain,
"there are at least questions as to whether it is suitable for Hongkong.
"In Hongkong our society is as sophisticated as the United Kingdom," Mr Litton said.
when
Mr Litton
said hanging is brought back in Hongkong, juries might be more reluctant to convict people of murder.
He pointed out that the crime of murder not only depends on the performed act, but also the intention at the time the act was performed.
"It is the task of the jury to find out what the man's intention was at the time of the killing," Mr Litton said.
CLEMENT
"A jury might be inclined to a more clement view of the defendant's intention and say that at that time he did not intend to inflict very serious harm and he only intended to menace of threaten with a knife," he said.
"If the jury takes that view then the
proper verdict is manslaughter and not murder," he said.
In those marginal decisions, the jury would undoubtedly have in mind the ultimate the of consequences convictions, he said.
"Bearing that in mind and realising the gravity of the view they take of the defendant's intention, think it is likely that they would exercise greater clemency.”
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