Police chief to support China as Interpol host

POLICE Commissioner Eddie Hui Ki-on will help lobby for China to host next year's annual gathering of world police chiefs in a move signalling the international law enforcement community's desire to focus on the mainland's spiralling crime problems.

It is believed delegates to this month's international Interpol meeting have already been canvassed on the importance of the vote.

Mr Hui will attend the Rome session and is certain to back moves to hold the 1995 conference in Beijing, having seen a previous bid flounder in 1990 in the wake of the Tiananmen Square massacre and widespread public condemnation of the role played by security forces.

Police sources say China is almost certain to win approval this time.

Each year Interpol members gather to review collective performances on global crime objectives and bolster formal communication.

The usual themes of drug trafficking, telecommunications crime and counterfeiting are expected to dominate discussion in Rome, but terrorism and the theft of material from nuclear facilities in the former Soviet Union will also be reviewed.

On the last day of the session, which starts on September 27, delegates will vote on a site for the 1995 meeting.

After the meeting, Mr Hui, who will be joined by Interpol superintendent Alan Yu Mun-wah, is scheduled to visit France and Britain. Although details are still being finalised, he is tipped to visit Interpol headquarters in Lyons - where Hong Kong is permanently represented by an officer on secondment - before studying operations of several provincial forces.

In Britain he will pay a courtesy visit to the London Office of the Hong Kong Government.

Mr Hui has made two visits to the mainland this month to formalise liaison channels in the first weeks of his command.

In Beijing he met Lu Ping, the Director of the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, and later agreed to allow mainland police to come to the territory under supervised conditions, to further inquiries into China crimes.

Mr Lu also gave assurances that the People's Liberation Army would not meddle in police affairs after the change of sovereignty. He also pledged there would be no imposed change to conditions of service.

On his second visit, Mr Hui renewed long-established ties with the Guangdong Public Security Bureau and, in a symbolic gesture, secured the return of eight luxury motor vehicles stolen from Hong Kong.

However, despite the cross-border co-operation, mainland crime is a perennial concern.

Beijing has announced a campaign to attack 'hardcore crimes' to address serious disorder in cities.

In the first six months this year, general crime increased by almost six per cent, but serious crime rose by 20.1 per cent.