TNAG-0497-FCO40-562-Deportation-of-foreign-nationals-from-Hong-Kong-1974 — Page 82

Foreign and Commonwealth Office London SW1

M. Raymonde Martineau

Secretary of the Geneva Group

Swiss Section

Amnesty International

BP 276

1211 Geneva 12

Telephone 01-

(267)

Our reference

Your reference

HKK 14/5

Date

20 August 1974

Dear Sir,

(261)

MAST

REF.

(260)

NEXT

REF.

Miss Warburton wrote to you on 16 August to tell you that your letter of 12 August, addressed to the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, about the 118 illegal immigrants from South Vietnam who were returned from Hong Kong to Saigon on 17 June, had been forwarded to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

The 118 were only returned to Saigon after the Vietnamese Government had given assurances that nothing serious would happen to members of the group who were victims of the synidcate which had smuggled them out of Vietnam, and that cases of violation of Vietnam's immigration/emigration laws would be tried in open court and would not be harshly punished. After the 118 had been repatriated, it was found that one member, who had given a false name in Hong Kong, had previously been condemned to death on smuggling charges. He has since been re-tried and sentenced, instead, to life imprisonment.

Twenty-seven of the remaining 117 (comprising women, children and old people) have now been released, and the remainder are being held in prisons in or near Saigon while they await trial. The group have thus all left Con Son Island.

You may know that, following further representations made on the group's behalf by HM Ambassador in Saigon, the Vietnamese Government issued on 30 July the following statement:-

"The British Ambassador called to express his Government' 8 concern about the apparently conflicting press reports of the assurances given to the British and Hong Kong Governments about the 118 illegal immigrants repatriated from Hong Kong.

The Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Vietnam reaffirmed to the British Ambassador in the Republic of Vietnam what he had already informed the Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London, Mr Hattersley: namely that the 118 illegal emigrants who had been repatriated from Hong Kong are being treated fairly and will be tried in open court in the normal way according to the laws of this country. It is not expected that these illegal emigrants would receive any exceptional punishment."

/You may

11