TNAG-2390-FCO40-3472-Extradition-from-the-UK-to-Hong-Kong-case-of-Lorrain-Esme-Os-1991 — Page 84

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CLIFFORD CHANCE

BLACKFRICES HOUSE 19 NEW BRIDGE STREET LONDON ¿C÷V ÕỆY ́CLEPHONE

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ALLAR ELJEM

CPM/CLE28/032/TAWU

2 Cucorter 1991

Forest and Commonwealth C≤fice

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SWLA PAR

Attention: H.D. Parker

Legal Advisers

PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL

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Lorrain Ünan - The Four Telegramz

We now have instructions from the Attorney General of Hong Kong to respond to your letter of 8th September 1991 on the above subject.

Wo appear to be in agreement as to the circumstances in which the Hong Kong Government prepared its Public Interest Imunity Certificate. We are also in agreement that there is, at the present time, no legal duty to disclose the existence of the four telegrams. In concluding that there is no obligation to disclose We have had particular regard to both the decision of the Divisional Court of 20th June 1990 that Lorrain Osman's application for discovery should be dismissed because there was nothing to suggest that the accusation against him was not made in good faith and, the fact that the four telegrams do not contain anything which could have agsisted Lorrain 09man's case regarding the bona fides of the Hong Kong Government in relation to the prosecution.

As you are aware, our client was initially of the view that the existence of the four télégrame should be disclosed because of the likelihood that they would have been included in Sir Piers Jacobs' Public Interest Immunity Certificate had be baan avare of the telegrama at the time of the Certification. Having bad regard to the fact that you decided not to disclose the four telagrana in Sir Francis Naude's Public Interest Imrunity Certificate when drafting that certificate, the absence of any present obligation to disclose, and your current desire that the four telegram should not be disclosed, our client is persuaded that it is unnecessary and undesirable for the Goverment of Hong Kong to disclose che four telegrams. In reaching this view, our client has also had regard to the fact that the four telegrans did not fall within the terms of Schedule L of Lorrain Osman's Notice of Motian of 10th April 1990 which Specified the categories of documents which he was seeking from the

Government of Hong Kong. In any event, it seems clear that a claim in/of ? Public Interest Immunity in respect of the four telegrams would be upheld.