Lu Ping-hon's Death
+
p.10
posting to Yaumati, and in a letter written on July 4,
1977 to a former class-mate in Japan suggests that it was "dangerous" at the police-station. [See Appendix II]
Given the subsequent arrests at Yaumati effected
by the I.C.A.C., which must themselves have been preceded
by an extended investigation, and given his earlier
employment interviews with that body, it would appear perfectly feasible that Liu Ping-hon, the newcomer at
the station with administrative access to confidential
files, may have been considered by some an I.C.A.C.
'plant'. However misplaced such supposition may have
been, there is little doubt that he could have been the
subject of suspicion of this type, and against this
backdrop his sudden death clearly merited close
examination.
The police investigation
The contrary would seem to have been the case, however. The fact is that the initial investigation, mounted by the C.I.D., gives the impression of being extraordinarily
cursory. The matter appears to have been immediately
classified, at least unofficially, as suicide, with the case being handed over later that very morning to the
uniform branch. No attempt was made to do more than
glance over the stairways and roof-top of the Hon Ming Building (no fingerprints, for example, were apparently ever taken of the broken door leading to the roof, with the object of ascertaining whether in fact Liu Ping-hon's fall had begun from that point) and the' objective observer
finds it difficult to escape from the view that the
initial investigation at any rate was hardly overzealous.
Admittedly the subsequent formal investigation was far
more widespread, though the fact remains that it did not
effectively start until the 29th July, three days after the death, so that any evidence there may have been had
had ample time to cool.