HKSAR v. Ngoma Juma Shabani
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HCCC 391/2024 [2025] HKCFI 3382 IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE CRIMINAL CASE NO 391 OF 2024 -----------------
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--------------------------------- Transcript of the Audio Recording
COURT: The defendant pleads guilty to one count of trafficking in dangerous drugs. The defendant is a Tanzanian. He arrived in Hong Kong on a plane from Johannesburg on 18 December 2023. He was intercepted by customs officers at the bonded bus waiting lounge at the Hong Kong International Airport. He was refused permission to land in Hong Kong. He was later taken to the North Lantau Island Hospital and Queen Elizabeth Hospital, where he discharged in total 50 plastic pellets containing a total of 802 grammes of a solid containing 676 grammes of cocaine. The defendant had purchased a bus ticket to travel from Hong Kong Airport to Macau on the same day and he booked a hotel in Macau from 18 December to 19 December 2023. The street value of the drugs was about $733,028. The defendant is 40 years old. He has one previous conviction of trafficking in dangerous drugs in Hong Kong for which he was sentenced to 10 years and 4 months’ imprisonment in January 2014. He was discharged from prison on 25 April 2020. In mitigation, Mr Marray, counsel for the defendant, submitted that after the defendant’s release from his previous conviction, the defendant returned to Tanzania. He later went to Turkey and dealt in second-hand phones. In Turkey, he met his wife, who is also from Tanzania. However, the defendant’s visa to continue his stay was refused and he had to leave Turkey, leaving his wife, who was pregnant at the time, without any money and also with no place to live. In desperation, the defendant agreed to act as a courier and to swallow the packets of dangerous drugs to Macau by taking a flight from Johannesburg to Hong Kong. The defendant’s wife gave birth to the daughter after the defendant’s arrest. The defendant has written a letter to the court. In the letter, he apologised for his wrongdoing. He asked the court to give him leniency, considering his little daughter and his wife, who are still stuck in Turkey. In considering the appropriate sentence for trafficking in cocaine, I make reference to the judgments of the Court of Appeal in HKSAR v Herry Jane Yusuph [2021] 1 HKLRD 290 and the case of HKSAR v Huang Ruifang [2025] 2 HKLRD 138. The quantity of cocaine involved in the present case is 676 grammes. Under Huang Ruifang, the starting point for trafficking in cocaine for 500 to 1,500 grammes should be 16 to 20 years’ imprisonment. For 676 grammes, by arithmetic calculation, the starting point should be around 16 years and 8 months’ imprisonment. This is not the first time the defendant committed the offence of trafficking in dangerous drugs. Three years and eight months after his discharge from prison in Hong Kong, he committed the offence again. The defendant was clearly not deterred by the previous sentence. Besides, there is an international element in this matter. The defendant imported into Hong Kong a large quantity of cocaine by a designed way. I am of the view that these factors aggravated the present offence. In my judgment, a period of 1 year and 4 months should be added to the starting point to reflect the above aggravating factors. The starting point should therefore be raised to 18 years’ imprisonment. Apart from the defendant’s guilty plea, I do not see any other valid mitigating factors. Taking into account his guilty plea, the sentence of the defendant is reduced to 12 years’ imprisonment. |
Cases cited in this judgment