HKSAR v. Lopez Iommi Andres

HCCC 214/2018

[2018] HKCFI 2856

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CRIMINAL CASE NO 214 OF 2018

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

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COURT:

Andres Lopez, I do not propose to preach a sermon about the evils of the international trade in cocaine. They are very well known. Suffice it to say that you knowingly took part in that party’s criminal enterprise of trading in that filthy substance. You did that by bringing into Hong Kong in 38 self-ingested capsules, 1.15 kilogrammes of a liquid suspension in which 641 grammes of cocaine was contained.

Your mitigation lies in the fact that you pleaded guilty at the earliest stage allowed in our criminal justice system, that is before the magistrate and you will receive full recognition for that.

I take the view that, so far as it is known because you are a stranger to Hong Kong, you have no criminal record, that is subsumed in the discount you are to receive for your guilty plea.

I have given considerable thought to Mr Boyton’s argument that I should give you a small, further reduction of sentence because of your claim that you were coerced into ingesting the 38 capsules of cocaine by threats to harm your son. I have decided that I should not. Such claims are easy to make, particularly in your case, given that the claimed threat was made in Bolivia, and therefore is almost impossible to disprove. The one authority on this matter from the English courts, where a reduction was made for that reason, deals with a 1974 case where the prosecution and the English investigating authority accepted that the accused in that case had been subjected to some duress before agreeing to participate in his crime. That is not the position in your case.

Your offences is aggravated by the fact that you sought to import over half a kilogramme of cocaine into Hong Kong. There is clear authority that those who do so should receive a higher sentence of imprisonment than those who traffic in cocaine wholly in Hong Kong and this enhancement of sentence can be as high as two years that if the weight of the dangerous drugs imported is one kilogramme or more. It is accepted that for lesser amounts the enhancement should be lower and in proportion to the active narcotic content of the drug imported.

Mr Boyton, I know, has told you that there are strict guidelines set out by the Court of Appeal in Hong Kong as to how judges should sentence people who engage in trafficking in dangerous drugs and those guidelines are clearly based, firmly based, on the narcotic weight of the dangerous drug trafficked. In your case that was 641 grammes. Mr Boyton will also have told you that judges are expected to stick to those guidelines unless there are very strong reasons not to do so and there are no such very strong reasons in your case.

The only other matter that goes to your credit is that you are participating in Father Wotherspoon’s campaign that uses convicted overseas drug traffickers to spread the message online, and by other means, that heavy prison sentences await those who bring dangerous drugs into Hong Kong. That is very useful - Father Wotherspoon’s campaign - and the judges of Hong Kong support it. The Court of Appeal has recently said that those who actively participate in it can, at the court’s discretion, be given a three-month reduction in their sentence for doing so.

I have to tell you that had you taken this matter to trial, had you been found guilty by a jury and had you no mitigation whatsoever, I would have to take an initial starting point sentence for your offence 20 years and 3 months. That would be based on the weight of the cocaine trafficked, 641 grammes. To that I would have added a further 1 year and 4 months to take account of the aggravating factor of you bringing cocaine into Hong Kong, which makes a total starting point sentence of 21 years and 7 months.

However, because of your guilty plea I am reducing that sentence by as much as one-third to a term of 14 years and 4 months.

And in my discretion, because of your demonstrated participation in Father Wotherspoon’s campaign, I am giving you a further 3 months’ discount. That means that your sentence for your offence is one of 14 years and 1 month.