TNAG-2956-FCO40-4233-Hong-Kong-trial-of-Lorrain-Osman--Malaysian-businessman-1993 — Page 20

S 363

HOME OFFICE

Queen Anne's Gate London SW1H 9AT

Direct line 071-273 Switchboard 071-273 3000

J Woodrow

Hong Kong Department

Foreign & Commonwealth Office

Your referend:

1.

Our reference

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384/3

ECEIVED IN REGISTRY

02 AUG 1993 BIRKOFFICER

19

Date

30 July 1993

Dear Mr Woodow

RE:

OSMAN: TEL NO 1089

You asked for comments on the letter which the Attorney General for Hong Kong proposes to send to the Sunday Morning Post. Our Legal Advisers have stressed to us the need to limit our comments to the legal reasons for the delay in Osman's extradition.

The

The proposed draft accurately records the sequence of events. Attorney General might add that the delay in Osman's extradition was created by Osman himself, in the way in which he lost no opportunity to use the remedies available to him under the Fugitive Offenders Act 1967, and under the Extradition Act 1989 which replaced it. Under the legislation the Home Secretary cannot order the surrender of a fugitive while habeas corpus proceedings are outstanding. By virtue of Osman's successive applications, the Home Secretary was prevented from signing a surrender warrant, following careful consideration of the case, until 15 June 1992, after Osman's seventh habeas corpus application had been dismissed by the House of Lords. Osman's surrender was then delayed because of further applications to the Court made by him the following day and these were followed by further applications for judicial review and habeas corpus.

Immediately following the dismissal of his latest petition for leave to appeal by the House of Lords, and when there were then no extant habeas corpus proceedings he was able to be surrendered on 15 December 1992.

It should also be noted that three of Osman's habeas corpus applications were dismissed by the High Court as an abuse of the process.

In his judgement on 12 December 1990 in the fourth habeas corpus application Lord Justice Mann found no lack of diligence on the part of the prosecution. In his judgement of 14 November 1991, on