HKSAR v. Haque Faizul

DCCC26/2012

IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

CRIMINAL CASE NO. 26 OF 2012

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Reasons for Sentence

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1.Defendant, you have pleaded guilty to one charge of trafficking in a dangerous drug, contrary to section 4(1)(a) and (3) of the Dangerous Drugs Ordinance.

2.You admitted that on 23 September 2011, at the Green Channel, Customs Arrival Hall B at the Hong Kong International Airport, in Hong Kong, you unlawfully trafficked in 18.88 kilograms of cannabis resin which is a dangerous drug.

3.The facts can be stated very simply.  On that day you arrived in Hong Kong from Kolkata, India, via Dhaka, Bangladesh.  When you were walking through the Green Customs Channel at the airport you were pushing a trolley which carried four carton boxes.  You were stopped and searched and it was found that the drugs were contained in these carton boxes in a total of 1,301 different packages and 21 plastic bottles of food wrappings or bottles.

4.The average retail price of the cannabis resin trafficked was an extremely large amount of HK$1.68 million.

5.Mr Giles Surman, your counsel, has mitigated fully and thoroughly on your behalf, I have taken into account all that he has had to say.

6.You are a man of clear record in Hong Kong and, I am informed, in India.  You are aged 34 and are a businessman trading in second-hand telephones, SIM cards and the like. You come to Hong Kong for your business to buy these second-hand electronic products and then take them back to India for sale. Mr Surman says foolishly you accepted approximately HK$800 to take this batch of drugs to Hong Kong by somebody at the airport in Kolkata and for that you have had to pay a high price as you will now be spending many years in prison.

7.As Mr Surman rightly reflected, this term of sentence is based upon clear guidelines in Hong Kong in the case of R v Tuen Shui Ming.  Those guidelines, however, stop at 4 years and upwards for over 9,000 grammes of cannabis resin, that is 9 kilograms.  At the material time you were importing into Hong Kong over 18 kilograms of cannabis resin. 

8.This type of trafficking may be considered to be at the upper end of the worst type of trafficking as you are dealing and bringing into Hong Kong dangerous drugs.

9.Defendant taking into account the fact that you had trafficked in 18.88 kilograms of cannabis resin, I consider an appropriate starting point to be one of 6 years’ imprisonment.  Your greatest mitigating factor is, as Mr Surman has said, your plea of guilty.  That came early in the Magistracy and I take that into account and give you the appropriate discount.

10.In the circumstances, defendant, you will be sentenced to 4 years’ imprisonment.