Witchhunters: Scandal, Secrets, and a Death That Shocked 1970s Hong Kong

A new look from Nury Vittachi & Simon J. Blake at the infamous (and now with about 3 other books on the subject) MacLennan murder/suicide in 1980 and the issues around the continued criminalisation of homosexuality in Hong Kong until 1991….

Hong Kong, 1980. A British police officer minutes away from being arrested by colleagues for sex crimes is found dead in his locked bedroom. There are multiple wounds to his chest; his used service revolver by his side. There’s only one possible conclusion: suicide. Yet a painstaking reinvestigation uncovers a different story: one involving a secret pedophile ring servicing the city’s most powerful men, high-level cover-ups, international geopolitics and the involvement of a secretive unit of police officers tasked with tracking down and arresting homosexuals–the Witchhunters. The operation ultimately resulted in the tragic death of police inspector John MacLennan–a watershed moment leading to the eventual decriminalization of homosexual acts in Hong Kong in 1991. For decades, many people have suspected that the young officer died because of information he possessed. This book reveals for the first time what MacLennan knew.