TNAG-0486-FCO40-551-Review-of-death-sentence-in-Hong-Kong-1974 — Page 144

1

CONFIDENTIAL

Foreign and Commonwealth Office London SW1

CH Prior Esq

Criminal Department Home Office Whitehall

SW1

Dear Prov

Telephone 01-

Your reference

Our reference

Date

7 January 1974

LAST

Ref

NEX

REF.

DEATH SENTENCES:

1.

case.

HONG KONG

The Governor has consulted us about a further difficult This is the case of R v. Liu Chu whose records are enclosed. The Governor has asked if we have any preliminary informal comments before he consults (also informally) with his Executive Council. You will remember that under the Letters Patent and Royal Instructions of Hong Kong the Governor is required to consider the question of pardon or reprieve "according to his own deliberate judgment".

He is obliged to take the formal advice of his Executive Council but need not follow it. Nor, in making his own decision, does he take or follow formal advice from the Secretary of State. We are thus considering here only what would be the position had there been a similar case in the UK when the death penalty still existed here. This is of help to the Governor in taking his own decision, but is in no sense a determinant. Nor are we dealing at this stage with the possibility of a petition to The Queen for the exercise of Her residual Prerogative of Mercy. Clearly this is relevant, since in the absence of any new evidence we are likely to take a similar view about the facts of the case both before the Governor has taken his decision and afterwards. But it would still be open to the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary to take a different view. Similarly we are not here considering the general question of the death penalty in Hong Kong; but only the decision of the Governor in circumstances where the penalty still exists as a punishment for murder.

2.

Turning to the particular case in question, the Governor has said that, at first sight, none of his advisers see any possible reason for commutation of sentence. My own preliminary reaction is the same. It seems clear that Liu Chu robbed a woman, and was then chased by the watchman of the building in which the robbery took place and two other young men. At some stage the pursuers became separated, the young men were intimidated and ran away.

A fight then took place between Liu Chu and the deceased in which the latter was armed with the metal object shown in Exhibit P1(H) and Liu Chu with a triangular metal file. Liu Chu killed the deceased, stabbing

/him several

CONFIDENTIAL

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Рык

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