HKSAR v. MAHERAN BINTI SHARIFF

CACC 312/2008

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF APPEAL

criminal APPEAL NO. 312 OF 2008

(ON APPEAL FROM HCCC NO. 151 of 2008)

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J U D G M E N T

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Stuart-Moore, Ag CJHC (giving the judgment of the Court):

1.  The applicant, aged 53, pleaded guilty on 2 September 2008 to trafficking in 1,342. 93 grammes of powder containing 879.02 grammes of cocaine.  She was sentenced on the same day by Deputy High Court Judge M Poon to 14 years and 8 months’ imprisonment and she now seeks leave to appeal against this sentence.

2.  The applicant travelled to Hong Kong International Airport from Brazil on 17 March 2008.  She was intercepted at the ‘nothing to declare’ channel and, when her hand luggage was searched, a Customs Officer discovered five pellets of drugs.  There was also a pair of jeans in her bag where drugs in four packets were found to have been sewn into the garment.  When the applicant was searched, each of her sports shoes was found to contain a further packet of drugs.  The applicant was then taken to hospital where a plastic wrapping containing further drugs was removed from her vagina and, later, further drugs were excreted from her body. 

3.  The street value of all the cocaine imported by the applicant was just over $905,000.

4.  The applicant gave answers to Customs Officers during an interview on 18 March 2008 in which she stated that that she had been in Kuala Lumpur, where she was living, when her friend ‘Vicky’ gave her USD 1,000 and an air ticket to go to Guangzhou to meet someone called ‘Charlie’.  She was then asked by ‘Charlie’ to go to Brazil, having provided her with an air ticket and a SIM card which would be used by someone in Brazil to make contact with her.  In due course, she said she was supplied with the pellets and a pair of jeans.  She denied knowing what the pellets found in her hand luggage were and she said that she had no knowledge of the sewn up compartment in the jeans.  She also denied knowing that anything had been concealed in her shoes or inside her body, saying that she had fallen unconscious after being drugged by the man she met in Brazil on the night before she flew to Hong Kong.

5.  The guilty plea is an acceptance that the story told by the applicant was nonsense.

6.  In sentencing, the judge adopted a 22-year starting point which it seems to us was entirely appropriate and in full accordance with modern authority. 

7.  Accordingly, this application is dismissed.