CO129-403 - Governor Sir May Acting Governor Claud Severn - 1913 [8-10] — Page 309

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COPY.

Enclosure

American Consular Service.

Hongkong, August 26, 1913.

The Honourable

Sir.

The Colonial Secretary,

Hongkong.

307

With reference to the requisition made by thie office upon His Excellency the Governor, representing the Colonial Government, on June 3rd., 1913, for the extradition of Vicente Sotto, wanted in the Philippine Islands to serve a sentence for the crime of abduction of which he has been legally convicted by competent tribunal in such islands, and to other correspondence between this office and the Colonial Government in relation to

this case, I have the honour to call the attention of the Colonial Government to the situation presented by a decision in the Police Magistrate's court in Hongkong before which the application for

extradition was heard. This decision in effect has declared that

Sotto has been convicted of an extradition crime; that the extra-

-dition treaty between the United States of America and the British

Government applies to the case; but that because of the discharge of the prisoner by the Supreme Court of Hongkong in a previous hearing on Habeas Corpus proceedings the matter is res adjudicata and that therefore under the British habeas corpus act the prison-

-er must be discharged.

While this decision of the Police Magistrate re-

presents the views of this office in that it declares that an

extradition crime has been committed and that extradition lies bet-

-ween this Colony and the Philippine Islands the decision goes

further and passes upon questions which this office cannot accept

as such that a police magistrate's court is competent to pass upon with any degree of finality, the result being that while the contentions of the crown are supported in respect to the law and

the treaty extradition is refused in a way not only to deprive the

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