Mr Duncan, Consular Department
MISS RITA NIGHTINGALE
HKK 385/2
RECEIVED IN REGISTRY NO. 51
- 2 OCT 1978
DESK OFFICER,
INDEX
No
REGORY
Action Ten
CLE
(64)
1. Thank you for sending me a copy of your draft submission, under cover of your minute of 27 October. As far as Hong Kong is concerned, I agree that there would be little point in going back to the Hong Kong Government on the basis of the question- naire enclosed with Mr Lyman's letter to Mrs Castle. I have not seen Hong Kong's reply to your letter of 4 August to Mr Davies, but since that letter covered much the same ground as the latest memorandum, I assume that Hong Kong will already either have answered many of the points in the questionnaire or else indi- cated that the information is not available. That apart, it is very difficult to see how some of the questions could be rele- vant to Miss Nightingale's case.
2.
On points of detail, I suggest that paragraph 5 might begin: "We have already examined the information supplied by the Hong Kong Government....."; and that paragraph 5(i) be amended to read: "one of her associates, Chan, is now serving a 5-year sentence in Hong Kong for trying to recruit other girl couriers. This strogly suggests that Miss Nightingale was no more than the tool of pro- fessional drug traffickers."
31 October 1978
cc:
Mr Figg
Mr Simons, SEAD
Mr Whomersley, Legal Advisers
R JT McLaren
Hong Kong and General Department