TNAG-0550-FCO40-645-Allegations-of-corruption-and-bribery-in-Hong-Kong-police-an-1975 — Page 60

The Editor,

The Hong Kong Standard,

635, King's Road,

Hong Kong,

A

ATTORNEY GENERAL'S CHAMBERS

HONG KONG

27th February, 1975.

Sir,

I am replying to Mrs. Elliott's further letter about the case

of Mr. CHAN Sing which was published in your newspaper on 14th February.

In answer (a) in my letter of 5th February (which dealt with

Mrs. Elliott's question as to how the police officer who interviewed

Mr. CHAN was able to give details of the killing when no one else

had been arrested), I wrote "Mr. CHAN himself said, when interviewed

in the presence of his legal advisers, that he made up the whole story

in his statement, basing it on what the inspector and other police

officers had told him of the circumstances". Though I did not put

them in quotation marks in my letter, the words "he made up the

whole story in his statement, basing it on what the inspector and

other police officers had told him of the circumstances" were the words

used by Mr. CHAN himself (subject to their being in the first person).

They were said when he was interviewed at the beginning of the

investigation into this matter in the presence of the legal aid

officer who was acting for him and a Crown Counsel. And they were

said when he was asked during the interview how he was able to give a detailed (though inaccurate) account of the circumstances of the

robbery and the killing that took place in the course of it. Thus,

this was not "the police explanation". Nor has there been a police

explanation of the matter. The outcome of the investigation, as I said

in my answer (c), was that Mr. CHAN claims that he made the statement

involuntarily because he was afraid. That claim has not led to

criminal proceedings against any of the police officers involved for the reason which I have already given this was (and I quote from my earlier letter) that "the only evidence against the police officers

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