OPIUM SENSATION

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 819, 13 November 1929, Page 9

OPIUM SENSATION

CHINESE VICE-CONSUL AND WIFE SENT TO GAOL HEAVY FINES IMPOSED SHANGHAI, Monday. A sensational trial was concluded today at Nanking. Kao Ying, formerly Chinese ViceConsul at San Francisco, and his wife, both wealthy Chinese, were charged with having illegally transported and attempted to sell £IOO,OOO worth of opium. The woman was sentenced to four years’ imprisonment and fined £SOO. Her husband was sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment and fined £6OO. A third accused, Suen Foon, was found not guilty. The arrest of Kao Ying and his wife and of their alleged accomplice at San Francisco created a most profound sensation in local political circles. It led to attempts by the Anti-Opium Association to influence the Nanking Court to inflict capital punishment. The woman was arrested a.t San Francisco on her arrival there from China with six trunks full of opium. She attempted to pass the customs under the diplomatic immunity clause, but the authorities ordered her arrest and return to China. “I DO NOT KNOW” In the course of the trial Mrs. Kao Ying created a sensation by appearing daily in court dressed in the height of European fashion. This action was adversely commented upon by Nanking officials. The woman nonchalantly answered a barrage of questions put by the prosecutor with the repeated phrase: “I uo not know.” Nevertheless, under pressure she involved certain persons in the leading cities of the Orient and at Honolulu and San Francisco. For the defence it was alleged that the Kao Yings had carried friends’ baggage and were not aware of the contents.