The defendant pleaded guilty in the Magistrates’ Court to one charge of trafficking in 1 kilogramme of a solid containing 844 grammes of cocaine and is committed to this court for sentence. He confirms his plea and his agreement to the Summary of Facts before me.
Summary of facts
Briefly stated, the defendant arrived Hong Kong from Tanzania on 21 August 2019 and was intercepted in the Passenger Terminal Building of the Hong Kong Airport for customs clearance. At the time, he had with him a Tanzanian passport, a ferry ticket to Macau, an accommodation voucher, a mobile phone, two SIM cards and some cash in various currencies. Subsequently, he was escorted to the North Lantau Hospital for medical examination investigation. As a result, it was found that there were foreign objects inside his body cavity. Under caution, the defendant admitted that he has swallowed 20 pellets. Afterwards at Queen Elizabeth Hospital, the defendant discharged a total to 72 pellets containing the cocaine which was the subject matter of the charge.
In a cautioned interview conducted on 22 August 2019, the defendant said that he had intended to purchase some spare parts in Macau for his motorcycle business. He had a friend called Mike who arranged for him the flight ticket and accommodation. The defendant said further that he was forced to swallow the subject drug at gunpoint by an unknown Nigerian male and was required to bring the drugs to Macau. The Nigerian male told him that someone would contact him to collect the drugs and the reward would be given to him upon successful delivery in Macau. The defendant said he expected his reward to be US$6,000. The defendant also said he travelled alone throughout the journey and he had not sought help from others.
According to the Summary of Facts, at the time the estimated street value of the cocaine was about HK$1,051,000.
Antecedent
The defendant was born in Tanzania and is now aged 39. He has obtained Form 4 education. He and his living-in girlfriend have two sons and one daughter, respectively aged 14, 13, and 11.
In mitigation, I am told by Mr Pannu that the defendant’s parents have died and he has a younger brother who is paralysed and for whose care the defendant is responsible. Mr Pannu also tells me that the defendant was laden with such a heavy financial burden that he was indebted to the tune of US$1,700 at the time of the commission of the offence which made him an easy prey to the trafficker who promised him US$5,000 for acting as a drug mule to Macau.
I am told that the defendant is now genuinely remorseful and that he has taken part in Father John Wotherspoon’s anti-drug campaign.
Sentence
Based on what is known in the Summary of Facts, I am satisfied that the defendant played the role of an international drug courier.
However, I have told Mr Pannu that without the defendant giving evidence before me, I would not be inclined to accept his assertion that he committed the present offence as a result of threat or coercion. In the end, the defendant decided not to give evidence. I find that this assertion of his inherently improbable, as I consider it not probable that the mastermind would allow an unwilling participant to travel alone without anyone monitoring him on the way.
Moreover, it is also not probable that the defendant would not seek help during the journey if as he said he was forced to swallow the drug.
Lastly, the defendant said he was expecting a handsome reward no matter whether it was US6,000 (as he said under caution) or US5,000 (as per his instruction to Mr Pannu). If the mastermind was willing to pay that much, I do not think it would be necessary for him to take the additional risk of involving an unwilling participant at all in the crime. To the contrary, I find that the defendant did what he did out of financial consideration. In any event, I note that Mr Pannu does not advance threat or coercion as a mitigating factor in his written mitigation submission. As such, I reject his assertion of acting under threat or coercion.
Based on the sentencing tariff laid down in HKSAR v Abdallah, trafficking in cocaine narcotic between 600 and 1,200 grammes attract a starting point of 20 to 23 years. In view of my finding that the defendant was a courier and the quantity of cocaine narcotic involved in the present case (which is 844 grammes), I adopt 21 years and 2 months’ imprisonment as a starting point.
Furthermore, because of the presence of international element in this case which is an aggravating factor, in view of the quantity of the cocaine narcotic involved, I add on top of the starting point 1 year and 4 months which I think is already favourable to the defendant. It could have been more (see HKSAR v Chung Ping Kun and HKSAR v Coz Tucto Delia). Therefore, the notional starting point after trial would be 22½ years’ imprisonment.
For his plea, the defendant is entitled to the customary discount of one-third which reduces the sentence to 15 years’ imprisonment. Mr Pannu has urged me to further reduce the defendant’s sentence in view of his financial pressure and difficult family circumstances. However, there are well-established case authorities saying that these can hardly assist a defendant in case of a serious offence such as the present one, HKSAR v Somphaksorn Lamyai [2009] 1 HKC 437 and HKSAR v Lau Pang [2004] 3 HKLRD 565.
Lastly, I would reduce the notional starting point by 3 months for the defendant’s participation in Father Wotherspoon’s campaign, including writing letters back to his country asking people not to be drug couriers. The sentence is reduced to 14 years and 9 months’ imprisonment.
Apart from the above, as the matter now stands, the defendant does not have any mitigating factors which may afford him a further reduction in sentence. If there is anything which may afford him a ground for further reduction in the future, that would be for the executive to consider. Therefore the defendant is sentenced to an imprisonment term of 14 years and 9 months’ imprisonment.