TNAG-1716-FCO40-2396-Hong-Kong-1987-Review-of-Representative-Government-1988 — Page 25

CONFIDENTIAL

TREATMENT OF PRISONERS AFTER 1997

Background

1.

In May and July 1987, Liberal MPs asked a series of questions on how the status of prisoners in Hong Kong might be affected by constitutional change in 1997. These were followed up in correspondence between Lord Winchelsea, a Liberal peer, and FCO and Home Office Ministers. It later became clear that Lord Winchelsea's concern related principally to the case of Mr Lorrain Osman, whose extradition the Hong Kong Government are seeking on bribery and corruption charges involving HK$1 billion.

2. The issue of the status of prisoners in Hong Kong after 1997 has also been raised in a recent report to the Parliamentary Human Rights Group on the human rights situation in the PRC.

CONFIDENTIAL,