TNAG-0554-FCO40-649-Review-of-death-sentence-in-Hong-Kong-1975 — Page 21

Mr Timms (HKIOD)

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HONG KONG : DEATH SENTENCES

Please refer to your minute of 2 June, and Mr Champion's and Miss Storar's minutes of the same date.

1.

I suggest that any comments made to the Press by the Hong Kong Government should be based on a rather fuller explanation of the Abdul Malik affair, which might be on the following lines:-

2.

/process

"Trinidad and Tobago is an independent sovereign state within the Commonwealth and the Government of the United Kingdom have no responsibility for its internal or external affairs.

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I

Under the constitution of Trinidad and Tobago, the Governor-General has power to exercise the prerogative of mercy in the name of and on behalf of Her Majesty as Queen of Trinidad and Tobago. In the exercise of this power the Governor-General acts on the advice of Ministers of the Government of Trinidad and Tobago acting after consultation with an Advisory Committee.

In the Abdul Malik case, the condemned man petitioned Her Majesty in Council for special leave to appeal to the Judicial Committee against his conviction by the Supreme Court of Trinidad, which had been upheld by the Trinidad Court of Appeal. It will be appreciated that this was part of the normal judicial/pers of Trinidad and Tobago and that the petition was not a petition for clemency. This petition was rejected by Her Majesty in Council on the recommendation of the Judicial Committee and the Governor-General of Trinidad and Tobago, acting in accordance with the Constitution of Trinidad and Tobago on the advice of Trinidad Ministers, decided that the law should take its course.

We have no information as to whether or not a petition for clemency was addressed to the Governor-General in the Abdul Malik case, and we have no reason to suppose that Abdul Malik addressed such a petition to Her Majesty the Queen.

If a person convicted in the courts of Trinidad and Tobago wishedtto petition for clemency, he would presumably petition the Governor-General of Trinidad and Tobago. If however such a person were to petition Her Majesty for clemency instead of the Governor-General, Her Majesty (in her capacity of Queen of

/Trinidad

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