HKSAR v. Zhong Guowen

HCCC144/2009

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CRIMINAL CASE NO. 144 OF 2009

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

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COURT:  Zhong Guowen, you have pleaded guilty to trafficking in 1954.20 grammes of a powder containing 1171.91 grammes of cocaine.  Those drugs were concealed in five coffee cans which you brought into Hong Kong by air on 19 November last year.  You had flown to Hong Kong from Sao Paolo, in Brazil, via Frankfurt.

Initially, the story you told the Customs Officers was that you had simply been asked to bring the cans of coffee to Hong Kong by somebody in Brazil where you lived.  You claimed you genuinely believed it was simply coffee that you were carrying.  Now, you have frankly admitted that you knew that it was drugs that you were bringing into Hong Kong.

I do not accept that you did not know the seriousness of the consequences if you brought drugs into Hong Kong.  Being originally from the Mainland, you cannot have failed to realise that a very long sentence of imprisonment would follow if you were caught trafficking in these drugs.  I can only assume that you weighed up the risk and decided that the rewards of trafficking made it worth taking that risk.

Drug trafficking is an evil offence and you were bringing a substantial quantity of drugs into Hong Kong.  Their estimated retail value here was over HK$1.6 million. 

As you may have been informed by your lawyers, in March 2009 the Court of Appeal in Hong Kong laid down new guidelines for cases where substantial quantities of heroin and cocaine were involved.  Your offence was committed before those guidelines were suggested and, therefore, I have to look at the offences of trafficking committed before those guidelines were issued for guidance as to the appropriate starting point in your case.

I have in particular referred to three cases, Balachawe Rufina Umangal CACC208/2008, Ho Chi Ming 1995 2 HKCR29 and Abdallah Anwar Abbas CACC304/2008 itself, all cases which involved drugs with slightly greater narcotic content, which had been brought into Hong Kong by air and in which a starting point of 25 years' imprisonment was approved. 

In your case I am prepared to reflect the slightly lower narcotic content of the drugs involved by adopting a starting point of 24 years' imprisonment.  That starting point reflects the aggravating feature that you were importing these drugs into Hong Kong. 

I have listened and taken into account all that Mr Tse, your counsel, has said on your behalf.  In particular, Mr Tse has told me that you committed this offence because you needed the money in order to pay for an operation for your father in the Mainland.  While I bear that matter in mind, it is not a factor to which I can attach much weight when it comes to an offence of this nature.  On your account, you were effectively prepared to commit an offence which was likely to harm or destroy the health of others in order to finance a surgical operation for your father.

The only substantial matter in mitigation is your plea of guilty and for that you are entitled to the usual discount of one-third.  I accordingly sentence you to 16 years' imprisonment.