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Mr Kurray
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2 6 MAY 1977
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See' x' overlent (6)
HONG KONG: DEATH SENTENCES; LETTER FROM THE RT HON GEOFFREY RIPPON MP
1. Mr Geoffrey Rippon QC MP (Conservative Hexham) wrote to Mr Tomlinson on 17 May enclosing a letter from a constituent about the death sentences passed in Hong Kong on two British
Mr Tomlinson's soldiers, Gurmer Puttock and Trooper Bassett. Office has marked Mr Rippon's letter for answer by the Secretary of State.
2. Gunner Puttock and Trooper Bassett were convicted of murdering Ng Pai, a Chinese civilian, in Hong Kong after an all night drinking session early in 1976. The two men were convicted and sentenced to death on 30 July last year. Their appeals against conviction were dismissed by the Hong Kong Court of Appeal on 10 February this year. Both men submitted petitions
The Governor, for clemency to the Governor earlier this month. with his Executive Council, is expected to decide before the and of June whether the two men should be reprieved. (Hong Kong telegram no. 525.)
3. No death sentence has been carried out in Hong Kong since 1966 but public opinion in the Colony remains overwhelmingly in favour of capital punishment and the Governor announced in late 1975 that whenever he commuted a death sentence he would impose life imprisonment, unless exceptional circumstances justified a lesser punishment. The Governor has continued to commute death sentences, with the reluctant acquiescence of his Executive Council.
4. Mr Rippon's constituent suggests that there is a parallel between the present situation in Hong Kong with regard to the death penalty and that which he asserts existed in Egypt some thirty years ago. There is no point in commenting on this
Whatever the attitude taken by the British authorities in Egypt at the time with regard to the case,
alleged parallel.
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