MURDER OF A'BECKETT

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 445, 1 February 1933, Page 3

MURDER OF A'BECKETT

CITED IN APPEAL ON CHINESE MURDER CASE. London, Monday. Would Henry the Second have been . found guilty of the murder of Thomas , A'Beclcet if he had been brought to trial before a British jury? Not a matter this, one might argue, of spot news in these days of sensations, but to say so sdiows a profound, ignorance of the ways of thought of the highest legal tribunal in the British Empire. One of its legal lights, Lord Wright, has just given au opinion on the point because it had an inportant bearing on whether a Chinese, Cheng Kwok, should die for having p/rocured poisons to murder another Chinese in Hongkong. The Crown Prosecutor has suggested that Cheng's ehaulfeur had procured a man to commit crime and Sir William Jowitt, for the defence, cited Henry the Second as having asked his courtiers "who will rid me of this turbulent priest?" Four members of the King's Court, to please the monarch, thereupon slaughtered the archbishop. But in the view of Lord Wright, Henry could not be_ held guilty by a British jury of aiding in the crime. Unfortunately, however, the historic parallel did not help Cheng. Other evidence was brought against him and the Privy Council decided he must die.