HKSAR v. Frank Azzem Hasso and Another

HCCC 336/2016

[2018] HKCFI 500

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CRIMINAL CASE NO 336 OF 2016

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

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COURT:

Mr Frank, you pleaded guilty on 25 October 2017, to one count of trafficking in dangerous drugs, contrary to section 4(1)(a) and (3) of the Dangerous Drugs Ordinance, Cap 134, in which you were jointly indicted with Mr Ali. Mr Ali, you were convicted after trial on the same count. Both of you stand before this court today to be sentenced for trafficking in 258 grammes of cocaine, which was imported into this country secreted in a parcel of children’s clothing sent from Brazil. You received that parcel on 12 December 2015.

As you well know, the facts of this case are very simple. The parcel was to be picked up by you in Kwun Tong Plaza. You, Mr Ali, tried to suggest that this was a simple act of friendship for someone else but the reward you were to receive bore no relation whatsoever to the value of the clothes inside the parcel. The WeChat messages before the court told the true story. The content of them, gentlemen, is not to your credit, either of you. They were really quite distasteful and I sincerely hope you are ashamed of yourself. But I put that entirely to one side in considering the sentence I am to pass.

You, Mr Frank, are now 24 years of age. You were born in the United States of America and then moved with your single mother and your brother to Spain and thereafter to France. By then it already looks as if you were showing some early signs of keeping bad company and that is why your mother moved to France. Sadly, you attitude did not really get better in the intervening years as you have readily told the court. No doubt this was not helped by the fact that your family moved from France to Puerto Rico and then from there to Northern China and finally to Shenzhen. You continued to skip studies and you were eventually simply giving English lessons. I note your mother returned to Spain in 2015 to care for your grandfather who sadly passed away shortly afterwards. You did not make her life any easier when you were arrested for this crime.

You say, in mitigation, that you met Mr Ali when you were short of money and trying to obtain a visa to return to China. You say that he offered $5,000 to pick up this parcel and that you accepted without thinking of the consequences. Given that you accepted that you have been abusing drugs from an early age, and taking into account the full WeChat messages, you have not been honest with the court in that regard. This was not your first experience of trafficking in drugs. However, you are to be sentenced for the one count to which you have pleaded guilty and for those purposes I will ignore the other evidence which suggests you were heavily involved in trafficking, not just this one incident.

You say you wish to turn your life around and to become an Islamic scholar. I imagine that in order to do that, you should start by telling the truth, the whole truth, and not just the truth which it is expedient for you to tell at this particular moment. But at least you appeared to have shown some remorse for what you had done.

Mr Ali, you had a much more secure background than Mr Frank. Your parents, as did Mr Frank’s mother, worked hard to provide for you and they appeared to be upright, decent citizens. They must despair about what has happened to you. I am sure they are devastated and I am sure you are sorry that you have caused them this distress. Unlike Mr Frank, you were academically bright. You had the potential to have a career in medicine, of which your parents would have been proud, but you seem to have lurched from school to school trying to achieve that end. Throughout your time in university, you were supported by your parents who must have been working very hard to help you fulfil your potential and you have let them down very badly.

As I have already mentioned it is clear from the evidence before the court and from other material that you were deeply involved in drug trafficking and that your attitude to the world and to your fellow man was not that which this court would hope to see in a doctor. But none of that is relevant to the sentence I pass today. You are still young enough to turn your life around and to prove that you are not so arrogant as to think that you can do whatever you like without consequence. I do notice however, that you have not suggested you have any remorse for what you have done to this jurisdiction, to your parents or to yourself but I have taken into consideration the fact that you did initially co-operate with Customs and Excise, even though in the event you went on to plead not guilty and to have a trial before jury. I have noted what this sentence will do to your future prospects, which would have been good.

On a completely separate note, as I have already foreshadowed. I also sincerely hope that you change your attitude to women. The two of you should be ashamed of what you said in those messages and your mothers would be appalled by your attitude.

For trafficking in 258 grammes of cocaine, you fall to be considered under the guidelines set out in HKSAR v Lau Tak Ming [1990] 2 HKLR 370. In that case, for trafficking in between 200 and 400 grammes of cocaine, the guideline sentence after trial is between 12 and 15 years’ imprisonment. For trafficking in 258 grammes of cocaine, the starting point for sentence after trial is therefore 12 years and 8 months. There is also the aggravating feature that you have both imported drugs into Hong Kong and in according with the Court of Appeal in HKSAR v Abdallah [2009] 2 HKLRD 437, for amounts over 1 kilogramme, the enhancement should not be less than 2 years. I therefore consider the appropriate enhancement in this case to be one of 6 months. That would make a sentence of 13 years and 2 months.

Mr Frank, you gave evidence against your co-defendant and there is no doubt that such evidence was significant in his conviction. I will therefore discount that sentence by 50 per cent and you will go to prison for 6 years and 7 months.

Mr Ali, you decided to have a trial, which is of course your absolute right. You choose to give evidence but the jury did not believe you and you were found guilty of the charge against you.

You will therefore go to prison for 13 years and 2 months.