TNAG-2084-FCO40-2969-Death-penalty-in-Hong-Kong-1990 — Page 178

Mr Butt

RESTRICTED

Reference....

Policy Planning Staff

MR Rankin

*- - 135,72 #REFENTA

APPEALS FOR CLEMENCY

1. APS/Mr Sainsbury has requested a review of our policy on appeals for clemency in two areas: on behalf of foreign nationals and on behalf of British citizens or British protected persons. When we spoke some time ago I suggested that a third area which should be taken into account was our practice in those Dependent Territories which retain the death penalty.

A.

British citizens and British protected persons.

2. This is not my parish but is, in my view, related to our practice in the Dependent Territories. My understanding is that it is our normal practice to make pleas for clemency on behalf of British nationals who have been sentenced to death abroad once the domestic judicial processes of the country concerned have been exhausted. Our appeals are based on the facts that the death sentence is no longer used in the UK and, in respect of Hong Kong people, that no executions have been carried out in Hong Kong for many years. My concerns are twofold:

i) is it not anomalous that we appeal on behalf of our nationals in third countries but leave open the possibility of executions being carried out in certain of our Dependent Territories? It is possible to envisage a situation where unfortunate timing caused us to appeal on behalf of a Hong Kong citizen in a third country at a time when an execution had recently taken or was shortly to take place in, for example, the Cayman Islands (both people having been convicted of murder);

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ii) I am unclear whether our policy is to appeal on behalf of Hong Kong people but not on behalf of people from other Dependent Territories which retain the death penalty (perhaps a need has not arisen in the latter case). If so, this would be difficult to justify given the line we take on making appeals on behalf of Hong Kong people (ie that executions have not taken place in Hong Kong for many years). The last execution took place in Hong Kong in 1966. Only two other Dependent Territories have used the death penalty more recently: Bermuda in 1977 and the British Virgin Islands in 1972. Thus, the line we are using is even more true of Anguilla (no executions), the Cayman Islands (last execution 1928), Montserrat (1961), and the Turks and Caicos Islands (1946), than it is for Hong Kong.

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