-4-
MAVASESIN
7.02
Government. Various arguments put forward by Mr Osman about lost documents, Warwick Reid and the immunity granted to a witness, the unavailability or otherwise of witnesses from Malaysia and the motives of the Malaysian and Hong Kong Governments were rejected by the Court. Warwick Reid was involved at an early stage in the investigation of the affair as head of the Commercial Crimes Bureau in Hong Kong and he was named in one of the 9 documents disclosed by the FCO referred to in para. 6. He was recently jailed himself in Hong Kong for 8 years for corruption. The prosecution against Mr Osman was brought by Edmund Robey of the Independent Commission Against Corruption and the evidence contains no statement from Mr Reid. The charges against Mr Reid did not involve Mr Osman and related to a period after proceedings against Mr Osman commenced. The court reconvened on 11 January 1991 when the court refused an application by Mr Osman for leave to appeal to the House of Lords. Petitions to the House of Lords for leave to appeal against the judgements in all four applications were refused.
8. In the latest application Osman argued that if he is returned to Hong Kong and convicted he would not be protected from further punishment or prosecution by the Chinese authorities should he still be in prison when sovereignty over the colony is transferred to the Peoples Republic of China in 1997. He also argued that he would be prejudiced at his trial because of the missing documents. The Divisional Court rejected both arguments and refused the application on 22 May. Mr Osman is now seeking leave to appeal to the House of Lords.
9.
Any question of discontinuing Mr Osman's prosecution would be a matter for the Hong Kong authorities.
10. As Lord Justice Mann remarked in his judgment on the fourth habeas corpus application, Mr Osman's resistance to extradition has lasted longer than any other has ever done. The Court hoped, as had Lord Justice Parker following the