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Mr Watts (Legal Advisers)
DEATH SENTENCES: HONG KONG
TSOI Kwok-cheong
1. You will remember from Hong Kong telegram No 387 that the execution of TSOI is likely to be fixed for 25 April. He has not, or not yet, petitioned Her Majesty for the exercise of the Queen's residual prerogative of mercy, but if a petition is made it will clearly be necessary to act very quickly. We have now received the record of the trial to add to the papers which were sent to us previously. All these are attached. I would be most grateful if you, or whichever Legal Adviser is taking over this case, could consider the new papers urgently and discuss with me, if possible before the weekend, what recommendation should be made to the Secretary of State if a petition is received.
CHAN Kam-wah
2. The Governor undertook to inform us in advance of the consideration of difficult cases by Executive Council. The attached papers in CHAN Kam-wah's case refer to that undertaking. We must therefore assume that the Governor may decide that the law should take its course in this case also. Since we concluded in the survey of The Queen's "Residual Frerogative of Mercy" in my submission of 13 April, to which you agreed, that the Secretary of State could in practice only intervene with the Governor, and therefore, presumably befo e the Governor takes his personal decision, I fear that, if there is to be any reality in the exercise at
to the fet all, we must study these papers even before they are
considered by Executive Council.
There is,
3. If you agree I would be most grateful if these papers could be studied urgently with a view to submission and a telegram to the Governor. perhaps, less urgency about this than about the case of TSOI since, as you will see, no date has yet been fixed for the consideration of CHAN's case by Hong Kong Executive Council.
16 April 1973
Copy to: Mr Wilford Miss Kelly
53B
ACSE
A C Stuart
Hong Kong & Indian Ocean Department
(17293) 897465 400m 1/73 G.W.B.Ltd. Gp.863
CONFIDENTIAL
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