TNAG-0217-FCO40-253-Detainees-and-prisoners-convicted-for-offences-during-the-di-1970 — Page 24

CONFIDENTIAL

Mh AW

83

Despo

12/12

For Gamiform H.K Deft

mmm

12 December, 1970.

SM

11,12

R.

I took the opportunity of the Governor's last visit to the Office on 11 December to raise with him Johnston's continued detention in China. I said that the release of the last two sick prisoners, welcome though it had been to us, had clearly not been enough to persuade the Chinese to release Johnston. I thought it unlikely that even if there were one more sick prisoner to come that this would be an adequate price. I wondered whether there was anything else which could be done which might be of assistance. I then added that during the .visit which John Morgan had paid to the prisons during his stay in Hong Kong in October, the existence of a number of the female confrontation prisoners had been mentioned to him. Was there any chance that these might provide us with a card which we could play? I went on to say that I recognised that the interest of Hong Kong and ourselves in this matter was not entirely the same.

All those held as confrontation prisoners in Hong Kong had been duly sentenced and I realised that it would not be easy to vary their sentences save in the context of the normal work of the Review Board. In the Hong Kong context there might be no incentive to the Board to give advantageous terms to any of those now held. On the other hand, looking at the matter from the United Kingdom point of view there was no doubt that Sino-ritish relations would be affected by the existence of confrontation prisoners until 1974 or thereabouts when the last of the men was due to be released. I did not much like the idea of this running sore. I said how grate- ful we were for all that the Governor had done in the past and I hoped that we would count on his help also for the future.

2. Sir David Trench said that he did not think the question of female prisoners had previously been brought to his attention but, as I had said, it was not easy for his Review Poard to proceed save in the context of the instructions for the operation of Review Boards issued in the past by the Colonial Office. He suggested that this was a useful document which we should study. I said that it was indeed a document of which I had my own copy and I specifically drew his attention to the fact that there was provision in it for a review of sentences which had been imposed for their exemplary effect at the height of a crisis. Might this not help us in dealing with some of the longer term risoners? The Gov rnor said that the Review Board had already paid particular attention to cases of a non-violent nature He would look sympathetically at all possibilities, but it was a fact that the unofficial members of his Review Board tended to look more carefully at cases which meant bending the regulations than did his officials and of cours he had to carry the unofficials with him.

A.F. Maddocks, Esq.,

HONG KONG.

PA

70

13.

CONFIDENTIAL