Bill Change Throws Taiwan Case Into Confusion

Hong Kong's top government officials couldn't explain on Friday how the suspect in a Taiwan murder case they have placed at the centre of a controversy on extradition laws can ever be surrendered to the island in light of new amendments they have made to the extradition bill going through Legco.

The SAR authorities insist that the legal amendments are necessary so that a Hong Kong man, Chan Tong-kai, can be sent to Taiwan to face trial for allegedly killing his Hong Kong girlfriend in Taipei.

But in the latest proposal announced on Thursday, the administration said extradition requests must come from the central authorities in a country, and not any provincial officials.

Beijing considers Taiwan to be a "renegade province".

On Friday, Chief Executive Carrie Lam was asked, given the latest changes, which authority would be able to make a request for Hong Kong to surrender Chan.

Lam replied: “The extradition of fugitives is a solemn matter. After listening to views, we think that we should adopt the international norm, and requests should be made by central authorities, rather than local ones. Therefore, we have to speak with Taiwan authorities to see which body should make the request, in order to meet this rather solemn and high-level requirement.”

Security Secretary John Lee had also side-stepped the same question, while reporters raised the query with Justice Secretary Teresa Cheng, only for Lee to step in but fail to answer.

People Power lawmaker Ray Chan said the government knows full well that it can no longer deal with the Taiwan murder case, and this is why Lee won't say which authority could request the suspect's extradition.

The Civic Party's Dennis Kwok said if the SAR government does eventually come to an agreement with Taipei on surrendering Chan, it would also be, in effect, recognising Taiwan as an independent country.

"They have this one China problem to grapple with. The central authority, according to them, is the People's Republic of China's central authority. That would be the government in Beijing. But they would also be recognising, whether intentionally or unintentionally, that Taiwan also has a central authority," Kwok said.

"I think they are getting themselves into deeper and deeper trouble with this bill."

At a Legco panel meeting on Friday, Lee told lawmakers that besides the Taiwan killing, there are another three murder cases that Hong Kong cannot deal with due to the restrictions on extraditions in the SAR's current legislation. He said the victims in all these cases were Hong Kong people.

Lee also said that the government has had to turn down several extradition requests in the past because it lacked the legal basis to agree to them.

Even before the latest amendment to the controversial extradition bill, Taiwan had made it clear that it would not seek Chan's extradition under the proposed new legislation. Taipei officials said the new laws would put Taiwanese people in Hong Kong, or those just passing through the SAR, at risk of being handed over to mainland authorities.