A
Mr Murray
CONFIDENTIAL
Criginal at: UKA 4/2/393/2.
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PS/Lord Goronwy-Roberts
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(16)
HKK 382/2
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18.
N
M.I
HONG KONG YAU MA TEI CORRUPTION CASE
:
1. In his telegram no 118 the Governor of Hong Kong describes the dilemma he is placed in by the practical difficulties of bringing criminal prosecutions against all 180 police officers suspected of being involved in corruption at the Yau ma tei Police Station. He proposed that any of the people concerned who are not successfully prosecuted should be dismissed by the use of Colonial Regulations (or, in the case of junior officers, the corresponding sections of the Police Ordinance). He asks for an assurance of FCO support in the event of an appeal to the Secretary of State from any officer who is dismissed in this way.
2. The case concerns some 180 officers, of whom the majority have been interdicted from the terms of the amnesty announced in November 1977. The total is made up of a number of small groups, containing at a maximum ten officers, which are each believed to have acted as corrupt syndicates. Despite strenuous efforts it has not been possible to establish any firm link between groups and it would, therefore, be necessary to take proceedings against each group separately.
3.
Such a series of prosecutions would take a long time to bring to a condusion (4 or 5 years) and the Governor and the Attorney-General of Hong Kong argue that it would be wrong to allow proceedings to carry on for that length of time. In addition, they believe that the credibility of prosecution witnesses, some of whom are convicted drug traffickers, would suffer if subjected to lengthy cross-examination in each of a large number of consecutive trials. In these circumstances there is no practical possibility of prosecuting all of the 180 suspects and the Attorney-General will now try and choose two or three groups, twenty or thirty individuals whom he considers significantly
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CONFIDENTIAL