Wrongly jailed teenager Lin Qiaoying was yesterday prevented from trying to identify in court an immigration officer accused of forcing her to admit that her Chinese passport was a forgery.
A defence lawyer said the teenager had an incentive to try to implicate the officer as any future compensation bid against the Government would be strengthened by a conviction.
Ms Lin, 18, was giving her first day's evidence about her alleged ordeal on October 9, 1999, in which she says she was forced to sign a false confession admitting she had a forged mainland passport.
Ms Lin was charged with possession of a forged passport and sentenced to four months' jail on October 12, 1999. She was granted bail on December 15 that year and had her conviction quashed on January 15 last year after it was found her passport was genuine.
Defence lawyers told the court immigration officers believed the teenager, who emigrated to the US from the mainland five years ago, was impersonating somebody else because she could not tell them the colour of a New York taxi, had poor English and a flimsy knowledge of school life.
After denying she was 'Chan Lai-na' and preparing to identify one of the accused - chief immigration assistant Lung Kin-sang, 37 - Ms Lin was halted from continuing her evidence when Lung's defence counsel, Daniel Marash, SC, applied to stop her from carrying out a 'dock identification parade'. Mr Marash said it would be dangerous to allow the identification, which he said should have been done earlier.
The District Court heard Ms Lin had not earlier identified any of the accused or been given any photos for identification. The prosecution was said to be relying on circumstantial evidence.
