HKSAR v. Kiwamba, Watende Sudi

Case No.HCCC 331/2013
Court
High Court CFI
Date07 Oct 2013
Judge
Case Document
100%

HCCC 331/2013

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CRIMINAL CASE NO 331 OF 2013

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  HKSAR  
  v  
  Kiwamba, Watende Sudi  

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Before: DHCJ McMahon
Date: 7 October 2013 at 9.46 am
Present: Mr P J Power, DDPP (Ag) of the Department of Justice, for HKSAR
  Mr John P McNamara, instructed by Simon Si & Co, assigned by DLA, for the accused
Offence: Trafficking in a dangerous drug (販運危險藥物)

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

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COURT: The defendant pleaded guilty in Eastern Magistracy to an offence of trafficking in 480 grammes of heroin. She has been committed to this court for sentence.

On 10 March of this year, the defendant, a 33-year-old Tanzanian national, arrived at Hong Kong International Airport on a flight from Kenya. She had concealed within her body 93 packets containing in total the charged drugs.

The starting point of sentence I take for that quantity of heroin is 15 years’ imprisonment. I enhance that to a starting point of 16 years’ imprisonment to reflect the international element of the offence.

There is no substantive mitigation other than the defendant’s plea of guilty and, to reflect that, I reduce her sentence to one of 10 years 8 months’ imprisonment.