CRIMINAL CASE NO. 306 OF 2012
COURT: The defendant had pleaded guilty in the Magistrates Court to one count of trafficking in a dangerous drug, namely 0.8 of a kilogram of a mixture containing 0.47 kilograms of heroin hydrochloride. The defendant has been committed to the Court of First Instance for sentence.
The facts are all too familiar and it is most unfortunate that, today, the defendant is the second Tanzanian male that I have had to sentence for this type of offence.
The defendant arrived at Hong Kong International Airport on 28 February this year from Dar Es Salaam via Doha. He was suspected of concealing drugs inside his body. He was escorted to the hospital and the presence of foreign objects was discovered in the defendant’s body.
The defendant was then cautioned and, under caution, the defendant admitted that he had swallowed 80 pellets and that he was told that he would be rewarded with US$6,000, although he said he did not know what they contained. He did not know where he was supposed to deliver the pellets but someone would instruct him.
The defendant was subsequently admitted to the hospital for observation. During his stay in the hospital, he discharged a total of 63 pellets on 16 occasions. Subsequently, the contents of these pellets were examined and they were found to consist of the drugs which are stated in the indictment. The street value of the drugs is estimated at HK$620,800.
The defendant, I am told, has a clear record in Hong Kong and arrived in Hong Kong by himself with nothing in his luggage that was unlawful. Mr Cahill, in mitigating on his behalf, says that his whole family is actually financially dependent on him. He has two young children; he has also elderly parents to support and also younger siblings. There is a paucity of social services in Tanzania.
The defendant has an eye problem, I am told, for about seven years and it has prevented him from being able to read or watch TV. He was told that he needed to have eye surgery and it was because of this and because of the poverty of his family circumstances that he was thus tempted by the US$6,000 to bring the drugs.
Trafficking in dangerous drugs is a very serious offence in Hong Kong and no matter how heavy the sentences we impose, the drug traffickers are still able to find people to carry the drugs for them. The only way to combat this is for the authorities to advertise in the African countries, in the poorer African countries to inform people that it is not worth the risk of merely six or five thousand dollars US to waste their lives, over 10 years of their lives, in prison in Hong Kong. It is also a fact that if these pellets were to break, the defendant would also possibly lose his life.
So having said that, the social or family circumstances of the defendant is not something that this court can regard in mitigation because the defendant was fully aware of all the circumstances when he decided to take this risk. The court has to look at the enhancement of the sentence because of the international element. The fact that the defendant imported these drugs into Hong Kong from another country is a cause for enhancing the sentence.
Mr Cahill has correctly pointed out that, in the case of Lau Tak Ming, the recommendation is that for trafficking of between 400 to 600 grammes of heroin, a sentence of 15 to 20 years is recommended. Here, the defendant was found trafficking in 470 grammes, thus meriting a sentence of about 16 years’ imprisonment. I have to enhance that because of the international element and so I enhance it to 17 years.
Giving the defendant the benefit of the full one-third discount, the sentence is therefore reduced to 11 years and 4 months.
But I would ask the officer present in court from the Correctional Services Department to please make a note to the doctor in prison to have the eye of the prisoner looked at and investigated.