TNAG-0488-FCO40-553-Review-of-death-sentence-in-Hong-Kong-1974 — Page 118

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with him. Mr. Cheung was sitting near the door to the room. From there he had a view of the entrance, he being on the staff of the guest house as an attendant and it being his responsibility to greet guests on arrival. Mr. Sin was asleep, or half asleep, on the bed. The attackers appeared to these two men to come in in three waves: they were in fact described as "three groups". Whether or not they actually arrived together or separately, it is very difficult to tell. What happened was that the first wave came in with knives and attacked Cheung and Sin. Those two men give slightly different version of how the Deceased came to be involved. One of them said that after the two of them had been attacked the attackers then kicked on the door of the bathroom upon which the Deceased "popped his head out of the door", presumably to see what was going on; that one of the attackers then aimed a blow at his head with a knife and, according to that witness, the blow actually landed, but the medical evidence throws some doubts upon that, although it is possible that an injury on the Deceased's head could have been made by the blunt side of a knife. The other witness suggests that two of the attackers went towards the bathroom and that one of them actually went into the bathroom and he saw this man coming out: he did not see him enter but he saw him coming out afterwards. By this time more attackers had come in and it is quite clear that Cheung and Sin were having considerable difficulty in protecting themselves from the attack which was being made. Their evidence was, however, that at no time did they see the Deceased come out of the bathroom. Eventually the attackers withdrew from Room 603. According to one of these two men it was when they saw the third wave of attackers approaching that they decided that it was time to escape through the bathroom and their evidence was, and it is supported by other witnesses, that they did in fact climb out through the bathroom window, and they were rescued from outside the house. They said that when they went through the bathroom they saw no sign of the Deceased. It was, therefore, the case for the prosecution that the Deceased had been so terrified by the attack which had been made upon the guest