HKSAR v. Amos Michael Alan

HCCC 454/2016

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CRIMINAL CASE NO 454 OF 2016

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Transcript of the Audio Recording
of the Sentence in the above Case

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COURT:

The defendant had pleaded guilty in the Magistrates’ court to one count of trafficking in a dangerous drug, namely 1.76 kilogrammes of a powder containing 1.32 kilogrammes of cocaine.

The facts are now becoming all too common in Hong Kong, is that on 19 March 2016, the defendant was intercepted as he was going through customs at the Hong Kong International Airport. He was in Hong Kong for transit, and was supposed to fly from South Africa via Dubai, via Hong Kong, to Vietnam, and he was carrying a plastic bag, and inside the plastic bag was six boxes of chocolates. And upon investigation, the cocaine were wrapped to disguise as chocolates.

And under caution, the defendant admitted that he was trafficking drugs for money, and knew that it was cocaine, and the defendant, in his cautioned video-recorded interview, admitted he was unemployed at the time. He was in debt, as yet to pay for medical expenses for his mother. It was his first time to Hong Kong, and he was expecting to get a monetary reward for successful delivery, of US$3,000. And he said the mastermind, someone he knew as Frank, lived in Thailand and gave him US$100 for food and expenses for the trip.

The retail value of the cocaine as of March 2016 was around HK$1,879,680. The defendant, as Mr McGowan pointed out, was aged 29 at the time of the offence, and is now aged 31.

He has had a difficult childhood, and he apparently was working in the mines as a safety officer, but due to economic reversals, he no longer had that job, then his mother was diagnosed with cancer, and in order to treat her, he went into debt.

And the defendant has been remorseful as he pleaded guilty at the earliest opportunity. The defendant has a clear record in Hong Kong, and indeed, as he said to the customs officers under caution, it was his first time in Hong Kong.

Added to that, I have letters from the defendant’s mother, seeking for a lenient sentence, and also the efforts of Father Wotherspoon.

Father Wotherspoon has single-handedly campaigned on behalf of many of the drug traffickers coming in to Hong Kong from foreign lands, and indeed, I do believe that it has had some success.

Father Wotherspoon’s letter said that the defendant and his family has actively contributed to his anti-drug campaign, by posting articles on South African websites and Facebook pages, and he pointed out that the success of the campaign is reflected as, as far as he knew, this year, there have only been two drug mules arrested in Hong Kong from the African continent, and none of them were from South Africa.

Well, I have no doubt that Father Wotherspoon’s campaign do meet -- has met with some success, but I also have no doubt that the drug traffickers go from continents to continents, and they go from the African continent to the South American continent and to elsewhere around the world, where people live in poverty. So the fact that only two from the African continent were arrested this year, no doubt has something to do with Father Wotherspoon’s campaign, but also with the general tactical considerations of these drug trafficking masterminds.

So in any event, as I have said just now, in the hearing before this court hearing, there are some circumstances which I will take into account when assessing sentence.

Now, it is clear, in Hong Kong, that we all know that there are sentencing guidelines for trafficking in cocaine laid down in the case of Abadallah in [2009] 2 HKLRD 437, and the Court of Appeal has recommended that for trafficking in between 1,200 to 4,000 grammes of cocaine, sentence of 23 to 26 years’ imprisonment is recommended.

For the amount in this case of 1.32 kilogrammes, I will take the starting point of 23 years, and because of the international element, will have to add two years onto that sentence to make it 25 years. So giving the defendant the full discount, one-third, for his plea at the very early stage, would reduce the sentence to 16 years and 8 months, and for the reason that I have given previously, I will reduce that by 4 months, and so the defendant will go to prison for 16 years and 4 months.