COURT: Defendant, you have pleaded guilty before a magistrate sitting at the Eastern Magistracy on 20 December 2021. As a result of your plea of guilty, you were committed here to the Court of First Instance for sentence.
You admitted that on 16 December 2020 outside No. 101 to 107 Portland Street, Yau Ma Tei, in Kowloon, you unlawfully trafficked in a dangerous drug, namely, 1 kilogramme of a crystalline solid containing 968 grammes of methamphetamine hydrochloride. The charge to which you pleaded guilty was a trafficking in dangerous drug charge contrary to section 4(1)(a) and (3) of the Dangerous Drugs Ordinance.
On 16 December at about 7.36 pm, police officers conducting an anti-drug operation on Portland Street spotted you acting furtively and at that time you were holding a white plastic bag in your left hand. The police officers intercepted you and found inside the plastic bag two T-shirts and the drugs as mentioned in the charge. They also found $602 and a mobile phone from your trousers pocket.
In a record of interview, you admitted that a friend had asked you to go and collect these drugs at Tsim Sha Tsui and bring them to Yau Ma Tei. You were promised a reward for this task.
The street value of the drugs was about $595,320.
Defendant, you are now aged 42, single. You were born in and come from Mali. You arrived in Hong Kong in 2018 as a result of political turmoil in your country and have come to Hong Kong to seek asylum. You are a Form 8 holder. You have a clear record.
Mr David Khosa, your defence counsel, informed this court that since your time in Hong Kong you have led a law-abiding life all along. However, in December 2020 you heard that your father’s kidney problem was deteriorating and that you needed to send some money back to assist him. As the only child of the family, you were under a lot of stress and your friends got to know about this, so to earn some quick money you made this unwise decision so that you could assist your father. You were then arrested, you were unable to help your father and sadly your father passed away in February 2021.
Mr Khosa tells me that you are very remorseful and apologised to Hong Kong for the commission of this offence.
Defendant, you were trafficking in an amount of 968 grammes of methamphetamine hydrochloride which is commonly known as ‘Ice’. The guidelines laid down by the Court of Appeal for this quantity of ‘Ice’ is set out in Abdallah. For amounts between 600 to 1,200 grammes, a sentence of between 20 and 23 years’ imprisonment is appropriate after trial.
In this case, defendant, it is clear from the facts that you were a courier taking it from Tsim Sha Tsui to Yau Ma Tei. In the circumstances, in view of the quantity of drugs, had you been convicted after trial, I would have taken a starting point of 21 years 9 months’ imprisonment.
You are a Form 8 holder and it is clear committing an offence as serious as drug trafficking, this calls for an enhancement of your sentence as you have betrayed the trust and hospitality by causing harm to Hong Kong while awaiting the outcome of your immigration claim. I enhance the starting point by 12 months’ imprisonment, 12 months, or 1 year. So that would take the notional sentence starting point to be one of 22 years and 9 months’ imprisonment had you been convicted after trial.
The strongest and only mitigating factor in this case, defendant, is your early plea of guilty at the first opportunity. For that you will receive a one-third discount.
There are no other mitigating factors and the resulting sentence to which you shall serve shall be one of 15 years and 2 months’ imprisonment.