Man from opium fields in limbo for 8 years as authorities fail to find his village
The High Court has agreed to look into the case of a man who has spent the past eight years trapped in Hong Kong because no one can locate his home village or even determine which country it is in.
Salimuchai Todd, 37, claims to come from a remote opium farming hamlet in the Golden Triangle, which borders Thailand, Laos and Myanmar. There are apparently no records of his birth, and he never obtained any official documentation before being smuggled into Hong Kong, first by helicopter and then boat in March 1999.
He is seeking declarations to the effect that he is a stateless person under the law and that the Hong Kong government has a duty to ensure people within its territory do not fall into destitution.
He also claims that the treatment he has received from the government has been degrading and inhumane.
Salimuchai, according to an application for judicial review filed on Wednesday, at the time spoke only a smattering of English in addition to the dialect of his tribe, and had come to Hong Kong in search of a Chinese drug lord who had purchased US$800,000 worth of opium with a dud cheque. His search was fruitless and it was not long before he was arrested for immigration offences.