SECRET
RECORD OF A MEETING BETWEEN LORD GORONWY-ROBERTS AND THE GOVERNOR OF HONG KONG HELD AT THE FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH OFFICE ON WEDNESDAY 9 APRIL AT 10.00 A.M.
Present
Lord Goronwy-Roberts
Mr D Ennals
Sir D Watson
Mr P JE Male
Mr P L O'Keeffe
Mr W Bentley
Mr, A C Galsworthy
Mr B H Dinwiddv
Sir Murray MacLehose
RECEIVED
REGISTRY No.52
28 APR 1975
DMURME
VI
16.
DEATH SENTENCES
•
Lord Goronwy-Roberts congratulated Sir Murray MacLehose on the compromise agreement he had recently reached with the Executive Council. He suggested that condemned people whose death sentences were commuted might be made to serve longer prison sentences, to which Sir Murray MacLehose replied that such sentences were already usually of 25 years (equivalent to perhaps 15 years after full remission) and that he had no recollection of any such sentences being less than 15 years (10 years after remission). The population as a whole continued to oppose abolition of the death sentence, but there was no point in either HMG or himself trying to look too far ahead on this matter.
Hong Kong & Indian Ocean Department
24 April 1975
SECRET