CONFIDENTIAL
Reference
Having
touched base with A Pand
(HKD)
NOTE FOR THE RECORD
cc:
RAIS BIN SANIMAN
W Ehrman Esq, Hong Kong Mr Paul HKD, FCO HMCG, PARIS
"
HKB 384/1
1. Mr Graham Grant of the Prosecutions Division of the Hong Kong Attoney General's chambers rang me est afternoon about the Saniman case. He explained that the Chambre d'Accusation de la Cour d'Appel at Versailles had delivered that morning an avis favorable, permitting Saniman to be extradited. This was very good news. But the court had made no custody order, so Saniman was no longer detained, and had been able to leave the court with his lawyers. The Hong Kong government was deeply concerned that he would flee the cage while the paperwork for extradition was being processed. Although Saniman's passport had been confiscated by the French, he almost certainly had other passports.
2. I spoke at about 1800 to Mme Boivineau, the senior most official in the Direction des Français à l'étranger et des étrangers en France at the Quai on this subject. She expressed some surprise about Saniman's effective release, and said she would speak straight away to the Ministry of Justice.
3. I also managed to get through to M. Nicoullaud in the Cabinet of the Minister of the Interior at 0900 this morning. I went over the details with him (he had not, of course, heard of the case before) and said I was alerting him because the possibility of Saniman fleeing France might suitably be drawn to the attention of the Police de 1'Air et des Frontières. He said he would try to help and took aboard the sensitivity of the case for Hong Kong.
4. Mr Grant also told me in a subsequent telephone conversation last night that Saniman was appealing. However, this did not negate the need to draw the possibility of an escape to the French authorities.
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CODE 18-77
31 October 1990
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