Mr Fifoot,
Legal Advisers,
K 164
CONFIDENTIAL
B
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HILD 383/2 ниб
RETURN OF FUGITIVE OFFENDERS TO HONG KONG
1. You will recall the correspondence from Mr Nicholas Winterton MP about safeguards preventing the onward transfer to the PRC of fugitive offenders or prisoners from Hong Kong. In the original draft reply from Lord Glenarthur, I had suggested that there could be no question of such transfers. However, on your advice (which I do not in the least dispute but which came as a surprise to me since I had, wrongly, assumed that there would indeed be no question of this happening), that was deleted from the draft.
2. While I was in Hong Kong, I discussed this question with Mr Newall of Mr Burrows' team. He is completely at one with you on the need for some form of arrangement to be negotiated with the Chinese authorities to preclude such transfers. He is concerned that we should be thinking about the terms of such an arrangement at an early date. He fears that extradition requests by Hong Kong might be refused by the requested countries before 1997 if there is no guarantee against onward transfer (and before Hong Kong has its own extradition treaties).
3. He has therefore been giving preliminary thought to a formula which might be negotiated with the Chinese. He suggested that this might be confirmed in an exchange of notes between the UK and the PRC. Suitable wording could then be included in Hong Kong's extradition treaties.
4.
I attach a copy of his first attempt at a formula (very much initial thinking at this stage). I should be grateful for your views.
18 March 1988
ethand
C T Wood
Hong Kong Department
175 4651
WIL .CT