TNAG-1212-FCO40-1515-Crimes-and-sentences-in-Hong-Kong--including-death-sentences-1982 — Page 102

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The first accused admitted in evidence that he and the second accused planned to steal from Mr. Teyfour's room but asserted that the third accused knew nothing of it. Ho claimed that they had found the room empty and that he had put down his knife while searching the place, the deceased had come in and picked it up and attacked him with it cutting his right hand whereupon the first accused lost control of himself and could remember no more until

he found the deceased lying on the floor gravely injured. The jury clearly (and rightly) rejected all possibility of misadventure or a verdict of man- slaughter on the ground of provocation.

The second accused did not testify.

The third accused claimed in evidence that he knew nothing of the plan though he admitted that he had mentioned the deceased and his presence at the Hong Kong Hotel to the first and second accused on the day prior to the killing and had inadvertently communicated to them the number of the deceased's room; he first become aware of what had happened when the first and second accused fled to his home; he admitted receiving 4 watches. The jury was clearly satis- fied that the third accused was party to the plan if not indeed the instigator of it. He is some years older than the other two accused, has a wife and two children and in relation to the other accused is a man of supreior education and sophistication. He saw the knives that were to be used though he may well have been dismayed to learn eventually of the extent of their use and sub- sequently on the same evening of the death of Mr. Teyfour.

The first accused, who is unmarried, made a bad impression upon me for an unpleasing combination of callousness ne self-pity. Unlike the other two accused he had previous convictions, namely three separate ones in 1976 for triad membership, theft and robbery. In respect of the last two he had been sent to a detention contre and given 10 strokes of the cane respectively. My impression from the evidence is that most of the stab wounds including the fatal one received by the deceased were inflicted by him. On his arrest he had attempted to throw himself from the window of the seventh-floor room where he was found.

The second accused is an ethnic Chinese from Vietnam who came legally with his family to Hong Kong in 1978. He is unmarried and is said to have been a soldier in the Vietnam war.

There is little to be said in mitigation for any of those men. Should Your Excellency, however, decide to exercise your perogative of mercy in the case of any of them a very long prison sentence would seem inevitable in commutation.

I have the honcur to be,

Sir,

Your obedient servant,

(E.G. Baber)

Junge of the High Court