TNAG-1923-FCO40-2728-Capital-punishment-in-Hong-Kong-1989 — Page 49

CODE 18-77

HKCB 380/1

CONFIDENTIAL

From:

ii

ނ

Date:

Reference

PA

N

6/2

Mr I D Hendry

Legal Advisers K 188

270 3061

6 February 1989

Mr January

West Indian and Atlantic Department

1.

I refer to your minute of 1 February. I agree generally that the line taken with TCI in FCO telno 130 is good for Bermuda also. However

(a)

(b)

ثلا

7

I am not sure that there is much in the argument at para 2 (iii) of FCO telno 130; it may have been relevant only to TCI because in that case the threatened introduction of the death penalty was by means of amendment to the TCI Bill equivalent to the UK Drug Trafficking Offences Act;

We need to up-date the argument at para 2 (ii) of FCO telno 130. The third periodic report on the Dependent Territories is due to be submitted to the UN Human Rights Committee in August of this year, and we are likely to be examined on it sometime within 6 months thereafter. The final sentence of para 2 (ii) would certainly apply if Bermuda enacted legislation to introduce the death penalty for certain drug offences. The Committee would examine the matter closely, particularly in the light of the requirement in Article 6 of the Covenant (quoted in para 2 (i) of FCO telno 130) that sentence of death may be imposed only for the most serious offences. We should need to satisfy the Committee that the offences to which the death penalty had been applied in Bermuda were "the most serious" and to explain fully why the new measures were considered necessary or desirable in Bermuda.

but

2. A further, incidental argument not used with TCI, which I suggest we put to Bermuda, is the following. A number of countries, especially in Western Europe, will not extradite a person to stand trial in another country if,

CONFIDENTIAL

/ upon