HKSAR v. LIEW TEK CHOON AND ANOTHER

HCCC8/2009

IN THE HIGH COURT OF THE

HONG KONG SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION

COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE

CRIMINAL CASE NO. 8 OF 2009

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Transcript of the audio recording
of the Sentence in the above case

COURT: Liew Tek-choon and Videhouenou Severin Houndekon, you have been convicted by this court after trial of  trafficking in dangerous drugs.  The drug involved was cocaine, and the quantity enormous: 7,804.31 grammes of a solid, containing 4,976.83 grammes of cocaine.  

     You, Liew, brought these drugs concealed in four briefcases which were packed in a suitcase you brought into Hong Kong by air from Surinam.  You had been told that somebody would collect the drugs from you in Hong Kong.  You claimed that you had been promised 8,000 Malaysian ringgit for bringing in what you falsely claimed you believed were diamonds.  

     You, Houndekon, were the person who came to collect the drugs from the 1st defendant after he arrived at a guesthouse in Jordan Road.  Unknown to you, the 1st defendant had agreed to participate in a controlled delivery operation, and Customs officers lay in ambush.  You were arrested as you pulled the suitcase containing the cocaine out of the guesthouse bedroom. 

     It is clear that both of you were part of an operation to import this large quantity of cocaine into Hong Kong from South America.  Whether they were destined to be taken elsewhere is not clear.  It is certainly possible that they were destined for the mainland, bearing in mind that that is from where you, Houndekon, had just come.  The fact that these offences involved importation from abroad is an aggravating feature.  Neither of you could have been in any doubt that very serious consequences would follow if you were caught. 

     At the time you committed these offences the Court of Appeal had not yet laid down the guidelines for offences involving over 600 grammes in the case of Abdallah Anwar Abbas CACC304/2008.  Had it done so you could have each expected a starting point of 28 years’ imprisonment. 

     At the time of your offences the Court of Appeal’s guidelines in Lau Tak Ming provided that those who trafficked in 400 to 600 grammes should expect a starting point of 15 to 20 years’ imprisonment, and those who trafficked in over 600 grammes should expect a starting point of 20 years upwards.  The amount of drugs involved in this case is eight times the quantity which the Court of Appeal said called for a starting point of 20 years.

     I have concluded that the appropriate starting point in this case for each of you, bearing in mind the quantity involved and the international element, is 26 years’ imprisonment.  In deciding upon that starting point I have in particular borne in mind the starting point which the Court of Appeal thought appropriate in the case of HKSAR v Chiu Ho Chung [2001] 1HKLRD 697, which involved heroin with a similar narcotic content to the cocaine in this case, but did not have the aggravating feature of an international element. 

     I have carefully considered in each of your cases, whether there are circumstances that would warrant any discount on the starting point. 

     In your case, Liew, you cooperated in the controlled delivery operation over several hours.  This entailed you complying with the instructions of Inspector Tang in making and receiving a large number of telephone calls.  There appears to be little doubt that the telephone number in Malaysia you were calling and from which you were called, which you gave to the Customs officers, was the number of the person who was orchestrating the drug delivery operation.  Your co-operation led to the arrest of the 2nd defendant who came to collect the drugs and who has now been convicted.  Your motives in cooperating may not have been entirely altruistic since you were still maintaining that you thought the contents of the suitcase were diamonds but  I am satisfied that this court should recognise the fact of cooperation.  Cooperation is often offered for mixed motives.  In my view, that cooperation should result in a discount of two years from the starting point to which I have referred.

     In your case, I sentence you to 24 years’ imprisonment. 

      In your case Houndekon, Mr Tolliday-Wright has eloquently advanced three factors which he says should result in a discount on the starting point: firstly, the fact that you are a foreigner far from home; secondly, the fact that the presence of Custom officers laying ambush in the guesthouse meant that you would not have been able to leave the guesthouse with the drugs; and thirdly, what he suggests was an element of entrapment.  Neither of the first two circumstances, in my view, warrants any discount. 

     Insofar as the third matter is concerned, I do not accept there was any element of entrapment in this case.  There is nothing to suggest that it would not have been you who collected the drugs from the 1st defendant upon his arrival in Hong Kong if he had not been arrested at the airport.  The place of collection of the drugs might have been different had it not been for the telephone calls of the 1st defendant, but there is nothing to suggest that it affected the person who collected them.  I am satisfied therefore there are no circumstances which warrant any discount from the starting point I referred to, and I accordingly sentence you to 26 years’ imprisonment.

     In conclusion, I would like to pay tribute to Inspector Tang Mei-wah and her subordinates who carried out the controlled delivery operation so effectively at the Pacific Guesthouse.  It was a potentially dangerous operation, which they carried out with great skill and efficiency.  I commend them for their bravery and professionalism.