COURT: Mr Morales, stand up, please.
I do not propose to read a sermon out to you. You are well aware of the evils of the international trade in cocaine. It is a trade to which you willingly lent your aid.
The quantity of cocaine that you attempted to smuggle in to Hong Kong is large. It was nearly half a kilogram of mixture. It had an active narcotic content of 340 grammes.
As your counsel will have told you, you face a long prison sentence for your offence. Aggravating your offence is the international dimension of this case. You attempted to smuggle this quantity of cocaine in to Hong Kong from Colombia, which is a notorious centre of cocaine production.
Your only mitigation is that you have been realistic and have pleaded guilty to your offence. A plea of guilty by an offender saves the court, the prosecution, and, in this case, the Customs & Excise service of Hong Kong, a great deal of time and money, but more importantly than that, a plea of guilty shows realism on the part of the offender, and it indicates genuine remorse on the part of the offender. You will receive due recognition for your plea of guilty in the sentence that I will shortly be passing on you.
I want to make it clear that your plea of guilty is the only matter that I find to be of mitigating value. You are an adult man of full age, and you foolishly embarked on this enterprise in the hope of what to you was no doubt a substantial financial reward.
As Mr Hotten, your counsel, will have told you, there are in Hong Kong strict guidelines for all judges as to how we should sentence people who traffic in dangerous drugs. Mr Hotten will have told you that we are expected to stick to those guidelines unless there are very good reasons for us not to do so, and I have to tell you that there are no such very good reasons in your case.
After trial, that means that had you fought this case and maintained a plea of not guilty, and had the case gone to trial before a jury, and had a jury in Hong Kong found you guilty of this offence, then, following those guidelines I have spoken of, you would have been looking at a sentence of imprisonment of at least 15 years. That takes into account the quantity of drugs involved and the international aspect of this case.
Because of your plea of guilty, I am reducing that period of imprisonment very substantially. I am in fact reducing it by one‑third to a sentence of 10 years’ imprisonment, which is the sentence that I now pass upon you.
Officials of the Correctional Services Department, when you are received into the prison you are sent, will explain to you the ramifications of the sentence that I have passed. They will give you your earliest possible release date. I can tell you that your sentence will start from the date you were first taken into custody by the authorities in Hong Kong.