'MAY 14 '92 19:32 CLIFFORD CHANCE HK 852 8104708
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tendered a newspaper article. This newspaper article had been enlarged so as to delete the date and content of the hearing. Fortunately Mr. Grant was able to convey to the Advocat Général that these were other proceedings than the BMFL proceedings and that Saniman was misrepresenting the position to the Court. However, Counsel for Saniman made serious allegations in the course of the hearing at the Chambre which were both outrageous and without any basis. The Hong Kong Government was unable to correct these matters when it clearly was in a position to do so.
Furthermore, in the course of extradition proceedings in UK in relation to Osman, the Court was told that certain documents had been furnished to Saniman's solicitors in Paris shortly prior to the French Government's decision. Those documents were tendered in Court. The Hong Kong Government's position is that those documents are not genuine and, even If they were, do little more than inculpate others in the fraud and do not exculpate Saniman, Osman nor Shamsudin. Notwithstanding the Hong Kong Government was disturbed when Osman's Counsel told the Malaysian High Court, in the course of related proceedings, that the basis for Saniman's discharge by the French Government was in fact these documents. If this is so, it is only right that the Hong Kong Government should have an opportunity to make representations to the French authorities concerning
them.
There has been no communication other than the Note from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the British Embassy setting out reasons for the French Government's refusal to recommend Saniman's extradition. Even that Note does not state that the Ministry of Justice found there were no new facts to justify the second request. It only does so by implication. Furthermore, having given different reasons, in relation to different offences, the decision appears to be self contradictory, in that it recognises implicitly as extraditable offences that were held to be non-extraditable in the first request.
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