The Shung Tam Kwan case exposes a piracy-law gap

Lo Hin-shing, the first Chinese president of the Hong Kong Bar Association, defended the accused men. Armed men in two junks chased and fired on a cargo junk for about half an hour until two Chinese merchant steamers intervened and HMS Somerset made arrests. The evidence clearly showed pursuit and gunfire, but the intended victim had neither armed guards nor the unmistakable British ownership that simplified other cases. Hong Kong's chief justice reserved the prosecution because the attack occurred in international waters and no robbery had been completed. That left uncertainty over the court's municipal jurisdiction and whether English piracy statutes covered an attempt that intervention had stopped. Lo's position on punishment sharpened the problem: he supported the death penalty for heinous premeditated murder, but not for an attack in which intervention prevented both robbery and killing. Naval suppression could therefore save the victim yet prevent the very element then thought necessary for conviction.