This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government, and should be
returned to the Foreign Office if not required for official use.
T: CHIA.
Code telegram to Mr. Jamieson (Tientsin)
Foreign Orice, 13th June 1939.
4.CO p.m.
No. 53.
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Your telegram No. 214 [of June 11th: Tientsin terrorists].
While procedure indicated in paragraph 1 must doubtless be
followed in dealing with ordinary criminal offenders it cannot be
rigidly followed in all cases where the complaint is one of a
political nature, and so long as we maintain a neutral status
for the Concession we must be satisfied before handing over
political offenders that there is prima facie evidence of an act
that would be a crime in ordinary circumstances.
My difficulty in acceding to the Japanese demand for the
surrender or the four men charged with the assassination of Cheng
is that so far as I have been informed there is no evidence
connecting them with the crime other than their own confessions
made while under detention by the Japanese Gendarmerie, and it
is alleged, under torture.
5 umpli
رة
Paragraph 3 of your telegram under reference is presumably an
amplification of the statement in your telegram No. 180 that two of
the four men having confessed to the Japanese subsequently re-
constructed the crime on the spot, and made similar admission under
no apparent duress to the Consul and Chief of Municipal Police.
I inferred that this latter admission was nevertheless made
while the men were still under Japanese detention because you went
on to say that when they were returned to the Municipal Council
they....