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initiative must lie with us.
6. The Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs warned our Consul on 8 September that the Department of Corrections might not view favourably a petition for a Royal Pardon. This has led Miss Nightingale, the defence lawyers and ourselves to agree that she should not act precipitately in filing such a petition but wait at least until after she has been seen to benefit from an amnesty (two are expected in December, she will not qualify for the first but may do for the second in which case her sentence could be reduced by a few years.)
7. We have secured full credit from the Thai Government for the "correct" attitude we have hitherto adopted and from an informal conversation our Counsellor in Bangkok had with senior Thai officials on 17 October they seem to want to establish a channel of communication with us to work out a
solution to the problem. Further informal exploratory talks with Thai officials therefore seem to present the best way
forward. In the view of South East Asia Department these would be best conducted in Bangkok in the first instance although we should keep the Thai Ambassador in the picture and should not overlook the possibility of using him as a vehicle for higher level representations at some stage. We should now leave it to the Embassy to find a suitable informal occasion for speaking to the Thais.
8. In view of the delicacy of the matter we recommend that, instead of writing, Dr Owen should invite Mrs Castle to meet him on her own and that she should be told that
i) matters have moved on to a point where it is now up
to us to see whether anything can be done at the diplomatic level to support a plea for a Royal Pardon (Mr David Lyman's letter endorses this view);
ii) we must therefore exercise our own control over
developments and to this end would much prefer to continue to work directly with Mr Lyman (senior) in Bangkok and not through Mr Hallmark. It makes obvious sense that the main point of contact should be there since both the Consulate and lawyers are in regular communication with Miss
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/Nightingale
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