COURT: Jairo Castaneda, I do not propose to preach a sermon, that is not my job. The harm that dangerous drugs and cocaine in particular, does throughout the world is well known and you, for reasons of your own, chose to lend your aid to this filthy trade.
There is nothing that can be said in your mitigation.
The courts in Hong Kong treat foreigners as equally as they treat Hong Kong citizens.
Your age, 73 now, is not a mitigating factor. The Hong Kong Court of Appeal have made this clear on a number of occasions. They have made it clear that to give special consideration to elderly drug traffickers would only encourage those who control the drug syndicates to employ the elderly as mules.
I note that you have no criminal record in Hong Kong. I have not been told whether or not you have a criminal record elsewhere. But, I have to tell you, the fact that you are of a clear record, certainly a clear record in Hong Kong, is of little mitigating value.
You chose to defend this case, as was your undoubted right, but by doing so you robbed yourself of the powerful mitigation of a guilty plea, which would have permitted me to pass a more lenient sentence than I have to.
Your counsel, Mr Boyton, who has defended you very ably, is a very experienced advocate. I know that he will have told you that there are guidelines set down as to how judges should sentence those who traffic in dangerous drugs.
He will also have told you that we are expected to stick to those guidelines unless there are exceptional reasons for us not to do so. There are no such exceptional reasons in your case.
The fact that you attempted to import a large quantity of cocaine into Hong Kong is regarded as an aggravating factor, as I know Mr Boyton will have told you. It is one that requires me to increase your sentence beyond the sentence I would have passed on a person who had been involved in trafficking in dangerous drugs wholly within Hong Kong.
Following the guidelines that I spoken of, the guidelines that Mr Boyton will have spoken to you about, I have to tell you that your sentence for this offence is one of 21 years’ imprisonment.