RESTRICTED
cc tincs
H of
com
1716
THE SANIMAN AFFAIR
FROM:
then pra
DATE:
Onli
t
bu 6/7
от
av Markets HRD ECO
( I think best not
(I
Коли нн
passed Ambassador
aunt we
MCGUL
16 June 1992 Fun Frome
перед)
1. M Georges Kiéjman came to lunch today. I did not push him but at the end of our time together he raised the question. He said that he had studied the papers very carefully and had had them sent back to the Ministry of Justice with a sharp rejoinder. It appeared that the papers had never been submitted to a ministerial cabinet and that therefore there was not authoritative confirmation of the decision to refuse extradition on legal grounds. It would have been entirely within the Minister's rights to have refused extradition on political/human rights or other grounds. It was certainly not right that the Versailles court's view, confirmed by the Cour de Cassation, following the introduction of new evidence by the Government of Hong Kong, should be negated in the way that it had been done. the other hand, it was not easy, without significant loss of face, for a decision which had been made known outside to be overturned. He remained focussed on the affair and thought that he might have a formal reply within two or three weeks time. He made no attempt to claim that the process which we had adapted had been the wrong one; indeed he thought that it had been an effective way of attracting ministerial level attention.
2. It is also true that M Kiéjman gave me no grounds for thinking that there was anything more sinister behind all this than an administrative error of judgement. He agreed, however, that the long delay was hard to explain or to
excuse.
On
Ewen Fergusson
RESTRICTED
HKD 384/1. нко