TNAG-2654-FCO40-3847-Extradition-cases-from-the-UK-and-France-to-Hong-Kong-Lorrai-1992 — Page 38

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SANIMAN CASE

1.

From: Head of Chancery

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Date: 22 October 1992

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At the end of my session with M. Thebault, Diplomatic Counsellor to the Minister of Justice, this morning he asked me, slightly accusingly, whether I wished to make any comment about the Saniman case.

2.

I briefly rehearsed the timetable of our actions on the case, and why, and how, we had proceeded to a recours gracieux, and now to a saisie du conseil d'etat. I explained that we would be taking our time over the latter. We were obliged to put forward an initial piece of paper through our lawyer to the Conseil d'Etat within two months of 19 September. The instruction to our lawyer had only just issued. Thereafter we would have another four months in which to put forward a more detailed dossier, we would not be hurrying to do this, but we would do it unless there was a change of heart on the French government side.

3. With different emphases, we both regretted that things had come to this sorry pass.

M.

Thebault said that the problem now was that the Ministry could do none other than oppose the course of action we had taken. I said that I appreciated this, and that it was not in any sense in a spirit of hostility to France that we had adopted this course: but our lawyers had advised us that the recours gracieux and the saisie du conseil d'etat were simply the only ways left open to us. M. Thebault said that it was a pity that we had not made a political approach to the Ministry of Justice of the kind I was now making in the Akbar case before a decision had been taken on the Saniman case. I explained that we had gone through the Quai on Saniman because there was the additional complication of our representing Hong Kong. I added that the advice we had received at official level in the Quai was that matters were in hand, and our concerns fully appreciated, and that it would be ill-advised of us to interfere in the course of French justice by any approach to the Ministry of Justice. M. Thebault said that this was indeed the classically correct line, which would be respected fully in any case involving a foreign government. But the Ministry's definition of "foreign did not de facto include EC governments. Contact between EC Justice Ministries

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