COURT: Furaha Giles Fundi, the courts in Hong Kong treat trafficking in dangerous drugs of any type very seriously.
You will have been told by Mr McGowan that very long terms of imprisonment are imposed on those who in any way engage in this filthy trade.
The account of how you came to be involved - the need to raise money for an operation for your mother - is an account which is all too familiar to the judges in Hong Kong. I have to say that I find nothing in your personal circumstances, or the circumstances of your commission of the offence to be of mitigating value.
Mr McGowan has argued that it is a mitigating factor that you have participated in a campaign pioneered by the Roman Catholic prison chaplain, Father John Wotherspoon, whereby foreign nationals, such as you are, pass, via his website, messages back to their native homes warning those who might be tempted to engage in similar activity as you engaged in, that in Hong Kong, the penalties for so doing are very high.
Now, that is a very laudable campaign. I have given the matter that Mr McGowan argued for a great deal of consideration, I do not believe that your participation can be considered as a mitigating factor. If recognition is to be given to your participation in Father Wotherspoon’s campaign, then it is better that it comes from an executive action permitting your earlier release from prison towards the end of your sentence. By then, the value and the success of the campaign will be known, and your participation can be properly evaluated.
The Court of Appeal have made clear that that is the approach judges should take, in a recent judgment, which is CACC 324/2015, a decision which the Court of Appeal gave on 5 May this year. And having considered that judgment, I believe that I do not have the discretion in sentencing that Mr McGowan argued I have.
In saying what I have said, I made it clear that I am in no way disparaging Father Wotherspoon’s campaign. It has a very laudable object. I am sure that he is doing a great deal of good, and I sincerely hope that it achieves its object. It certainly is imaginative, and from Father Wotherspoon’s letter in support of your mitigation, it appears to be working.
The fact that you sought to import a large quantity of heroin into Hong Kong from East Africa is regrettably, for you, a factor that aggravates your offence. Sentencing policy in Hong Kong requires that your sentence must be longer than it would have been had it been passed on an offender who trafficked heroin of a like quantity within Hong Kong.
Frankly, your only mitigation lies in your early plea of guilty, and it is very much to your credit that you asked for your trial date to be brought forward from January of next year, so you could enter a guilty plea. Not only does that indicate realism on your part, your guilty plea also indicates that you accept your wrongdoing. It also indicates that you are remorseful for your offence.
Now, I know that Mr McGowan will have told you, as I have to tell you, that there are very firm guidelines laid down by the Court of Appeal as to the length of sentences trial judges have to pass on those who traffic in any type of dangerous drug such as heroin or cocaine. Those guidelines are based on the active weight of the drug in the compound which has been trafficked.
In your case, the total weight of the compound you brought into Hong Kong was 1,129 grammes, well over a kilogramme, and the active weight of drugs in that compound was 824 grammes. It matters not that 124 grammes of that weight was a chemical derivative which is known as 6-monoacetylmorphine hydrochloride, and that the remaining 900 grammes was heroin hydrochloride. The courts of Hong Kong have long recognised that the potency of both chemical compounds is the same.
Following the guidelines I have spoken of, after trial, that means had you defended this case, taken to trial and being found guilty by a jury, a sentence of 21 years’ imprisonment on a person who trafficked in the quantity of active dangerous drugs that you did would have been justified. Given the fact that you attempted to import that dangerous drugs into Hong Kong, a higher sentence after trial of 22 years’ imprisonment would have been justified.
Because of your plea of guilty, I am permitted to reduce your sentence considerably, and I do so and I reduce it by as much as one-third. For your offence of trafficking in a dangerous drug, you are sentenced to 14 years and 8 months’ imprisonment.