Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam yesterday said the extradition Bill that sparked the territory's biggest political crisis in decades was dead, admitting that the government's work on the Bill had been a ‘total failure’. A report in The Daily Telegraph notes that the embattled leader again stopped short of protester demands to immediately withdraw the Bill. ‘There are still lingering doubts about the government's sincerity or worries (about) whether the government will restart the process with the Legislative Council. So I reiterate here, there is no such plan. The Bill is dead,’ she said. The Bill, which would have allowed people in Hong Kong to be sent to mainland China to face trial, sparked huge and at times violent street protests and plunged the former British colony into turmoil. In mid-June, Lam responded to huge protests by suspending the Bill, but that move failed to satisfy critics, who continued to demonstrate against the Bill and call for Lam's resignation. Hong Kong society is concerned that the planned Bill would threaten the much-cherished rule of law that underpins the city's international financial status. Many in Hong Kong believe China's justice system is marked by torture, forced confessions and arbitrary detention, claims that Beijing denies.